NATIONAL LIFE STORIES ARTISTS' LIVES John Wells Interviewed by Tamsyn Woolcombe C466/18

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NATIONAL LIFE STORIES

ARTISTS' LIVES

John Wells Interviewed by Tamsyn Woolcombe C466/18

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The British Library National Life Stories

Interview Summary Sheet Title Page

Ref no: C466/18/01-06 Playback: F4044-F4047; F4795-F4796

Collection title: Artist’s Lives

Interviewee’s Wells Title: Mr surname: Interviewee’s John Sex: Male forename: Occupation: Date and place of birth: Mother’s Father’s occupation: occupation: Dates of recording: 9 June 1994, 7 August 1994, 27 November 1994.

Location of Interviewee's home interview: Name of Tamsyn Woolcombe interviewer: Type of recorder: Marantz CP430 and 2 lapel mics

Recording format : Tape TDK C60

Total no. of tracks 6 tapes Mono or stereo: stereo

Total Duration:

Additional material:

Comments:

Part 1 [Tape 1 Side A]

John Wells talking to Tamsyn Woollcombe, on the 7th June, 1994, at his studio, Trevalynis [ph], in Newlyn. That's right.

Okay. Well, we're sitting in your old friend, Dennis Mitchell's studio at the moment, but I just want to go back right back to as far as you can remember your childhood, and whether you remember your grandparents as well. I don't know. Your father was a bacteriologist?

My father was a bacteriologist. He died before I remember him, in 1909.

That's right. And you were born in 1907?

That's right, yes.

Yes. So you don't remember him at all.

Not at all.

No. And your mother?

Mother was Cornish.

Right. Yes. She and two of her sisters went up to London, and were nurses, you see, and my mother, of course, met my father in St. Mary's Hospital, where he later worked in the Bacteriology Department, and the Head of that was Sir Alworth Wright, who was famous to anybody who knows that sort of time. And he was my godfather, yes. And your father was a colleague of Alexander Fleming, is that right? Yes, at the same time, that's right. Who discovered penicillin.

Yes. But Fleming found out what was wrong with my father, and they sent him away to the country, and he died down there. He went from London to Sussex.

To Ditchling?

To a place called Ditchling, yes.

Mmm, yes, because I read ...

It was a very arty sort of place, yes. So my earliest memories are really from Ditchling, yes.

And so were you, do you remember Gill and people like that, then, down there? I remember the name very well. My sister knew the Gills, yes. Yes. But I was at school a lot of that time, you see, boarding school. You were sent away, what, to ... was that Epsom? Epsom, yes, mmm. It was a Medical Foundation, you see, you could take your First MB from Epsom.

So at what age did you go to that school, that Epsom school?

I think about... the age of about nine, I think.

Oh, I see. Quite young. Oh yes.

So did you go to a sort of kindergarten in the village, or not?

Yes. I went to a little school in the village, yes, mmm.

Did you remember anything about your teachers there, or anything?

Not much. Not much. Yes, it was run by a Mr. Bradford, who was an old rowing blue, I think, from Oxford, and was a person of enormous integrity, I do remember that about him. He was a lovely man really. And that place was burnt down when I was a child. He lost everything, yes. It was very sad. Was it burnt down when you were there? Oh yes, it was. I had mumps at the time, and looked out of the window and saw this awful fire.

Oh dear!

Just down the road, the other side, yes.

And was there a vague interest, I mean, in art, at all, at that point in your life? Yes, I think I picked up a little bit because there were people all around, you know, and I had one or two little lessons from people in the village, yes. Part of the sort of Gill lot? Or ... There was somebody who taught, who was Head, I think, of the Brighton Art School, but commuted to Brighton from there, it was only eight miles away, you see. Yes. Who was that? And he gave me a lesson. He was called Gmette. Yes, and we were very friendly with the family, yes. Because that village, Brangwyn had lived there, hadn't he. Yes, he had a house on the corner, yes. Never met him. No. No, no, no. And the weavers, Ethel Mairet.

Yes I knew them. My sister had lessons with the weavers, that was Ethel Mairet.

Yes.

Yes, she was a pioneer weaver, you know, natural...

Natural dyes, and things.

Dyes and all that sort of thing. Oh yes, I knew about her all right. Did she have a sort of partner? There was Ethel Mairet and someone, I can't remember who the other person was.

Well, didn't she have a husband called Coomaraswamy? I'm not sure.

I don't know.

I'm not sure quite. I think it was.

And so it was you and your sister.

Just the two of us, yes.

And your sister's younger than you, or older?

Eighteen months younger, yes.

Is she still alive, actually? She's still alive. She's in Ireland, actually, now. Yes. A lot of her married life was in Ceylon, and then when that finished she came back to England, yes. No, she didn't come back to England, she went back to Ireland, yes. Because her husband was from Ireland? No. Or not? They came there because of financial reasons, I think. And he died a few years ago, so she's on her own over there now. And your mother brought you up sort of single-handedly. Did she have any help in the house? Well, we had a maid of some sort, you know, a country maid, that's about all. We had a ... there was a little place next to there, the house next door was a VAD hospital during the War, during the 1914 War, and she was in charge of that,

because she was a nurse, you see, a qualified nurse. So she had all these wounded soldiers there. I remember that, yes. And did you used to go and ... so you were old enough to remember them then, these soldiers, in the hospital next door? Oh yes, I do remember them, some of them, anyway. And so did, did you begin to think about being a doctor, at that point, when you saw all those nurses and the wounded and things, or not? No, it was more or less fixed on me by the trustees of my father's ... you know ... the people who had been at St. Mary's Hospital. The people were very good ... saved some money for us and got a Carnegie Hero Fund Trust, maintenance for my mother, for many years, you know, yes. Yes. And so it was sort of, it was understood then, that you were probably going to probably go and follow in your father's footsteps? Yes, well, they got me into this place called Epsom, which is a ... I think I got a Scholarship into there, of some sort, you know. Yes, yes. Which specialised, as you were saying, in medical ... Yes. A lot of the people were doctors' sons, and it was definitely a medical foundation, and you could take your First MB there, which I did, and then went on to University College Hospital, or University College and Hospital. And that was where it is now, in sort of Gower Street area? Gower Street, yes. And when you were a child, did you ... was there sort of art in the house, in Ditchling? Were there things on the walls as well? No, not much, no, no. No. So that was just... Well, Mother had a lot of prints and things around, I think, you know, real classical paintings and that. Mmm. Mmm. Reproductions? Oh yes. Oh yes. And, and when you went up to London, you lived in London, when you were at the University College? Well, we had to sell... no, we only rented the house, actually, at Ditchling, and then we went to Lindfield, which is a few miles away, more in the middle of Sussex. And then when I had to go the Hospital and that, the trustees got a house for us in

the suburbs of London, Wembley, which is a dreadful place. And so we had to go there. I see. And these trustees, they weren't family trustees, they were to do with this ... trust that had been set up by the colleagues of your father? That's right, yes. Yes. So that was goodbye to Ditchling. Yes. Yes. So that was when you ... so, hold on a minute. The 1920s. 1916-1921 you went to Epsom, I've got written down, from a previous ... chronology of your ... do you think that would be right? Yes, I suppose it, I suppose it's right. I can't remember exactly. I know it was all through the First World War, and ... yes. I might double-check that a bit later. Then I've got written down that you went to the University College, London, 1925-30. Would that be right?

That would be about it, yes.

And so you, you just commuted in from your, the house in Wembley for that?

Yes. Yes.

You weren't in lodgings or anything?

Just a short train journey.

So that was five years?

Yes, it was, mmm.

And then, during that time, you attended some life drawing classes, didn't you?

I went, latterly, towards the end of that time, to St. Martin's, to evening classes, yes.

And who, can you remember who it was who taught you then?

No, I can't remember at all. I know I was very bad, I know that much! Hopeless!

Why did you go? Well, I wanted to learn about... they were very ... you see, I met Ben in 1928 you see, so I was ... that really ... Was that the catalyst, Ben? That was the catalyst, the meeting of Ben. That was the catalyst, yes.

And then you did the life drawing?

Yes.

I see. I thought you'd started before you'd met Ben.

No, I don't think so.

I see. I see. And so you were drawing from the model.

Yes. Yes.

And have you still got any of your, your work from that time?

No.. Well they were dreadful! But did it help, the fact that you'd done anatomy, presumably, hadn't you, while you were training as a doctor?

Yes.

Slightly, did it, or not?

I don't know that it helped very much, I wasn't very good at anatomy anyway! [Laughs]

And then ... what about your friends and things like that, in your medical life? Did you ... your fellow students ... Well, nobody I can remember very well. A few people I worked with, and we sort of studied together, but I can't remember any deep friendships arising out of that. Not really. And so did you think you were going to ... at the beginning of your medical training, did you think you were going to specialise in something, or did you think you were going to be a GP, or ... or what, or don't you know? Well, until I was qualified, I hadn't any idea, I don't think, at all. But I did a locum GP when I was qualified, and I swore I would never do a GP again in all my life. And then I had to. Where was the locum one, then, that you did? Oh, I think it was locally in Wembley, actually. And I did one or two others, because I had to do them, and ... well... and then I did hospital work, you see, for several years. Yes, and that was when you were on the Scilly Isles, was that? No. It was long before that. 1931, '32 I was in Norwich, the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, and '33, '34 and '35 in Nottingham General Hospital. I had a lot of experience then in hospital work, you see. When you say "hospital work", it doesn't mean you were a surgeon. You were going ... what does it mean, exactly? I started off as a Casualty Officer, and then I did House Physician, I did ear, nose and throats and eyes. And then I did surgery.

Goodness!

Yes.

Everything. Yes, yes. Yes. And then the great moment came, that you've written about in this Crane Kalman Gallery catalogue (27th June-31st July, 1968) "Ben Nicholson Early Works", you were invited to write an essay in that. Well, I just wrote something about him, yes.

Something about Ben Nicholson.

Mmm. Mmm. Well, that was before I was qualified, you see. Yes, exactly. During, I'm sorry, going back to the twenties. Yes. And you describe the ... the year is 1928, is it?

'28. 1927 I had something in a thing called "The Young ..."

The Daily Express Young Artists.

The Daily Express Young Artists, a little drawing, which I sold for one pound five shillings. And that was after you'd ... well, that's funny, because you'd started, that means, before you'd met Ben. Oh yes. Oh yes, I was doing, playing about, yes. Yes. So you had started, possibly, the life drawing, had you, after all, before you met Ben, or not? I can't remember quite. I can't remember. I think ... I don't remember exactly, I may have just done it. I'm not quite sure. But the thing you ... how did the Daily Express Young Artists Exhibition come about? Were people invited to ... I don't know. I think we just sent something in. It was advertised or something, was it?

I may have known somebody who knew, who knew about it. I don't really know. But it was very interesting, because a lot of people like Ben, and Christopher Wood, and that, showed in that Exhibition, you know. So do you remember having seen their work in it?

I do, yes, yes. but I don't think it meant much to me then, that was before I'd met them, you see. Mmm, mmm, mmm. And was that, where was it held, that Exhibition? Can you remember?

I don't remember.

The Mall, or something?

I don't remember where it was now. I've got the catalogue somewhere.

Mmm.

Yes.

But then, so that was 1927, and then the following year, your cousin ... you tell me.

Yes. Well, yes, my cousin, Norman Williams, yes. Norman Williams, and he had a little small-holding, in this lovely place called Feock, you know. And actually, that's one of… that leaflet of Winifred there.

Here? That one, that's it. See what I did? That's Feock. ...

Oh yes.

You see when I did it? That's the date, 1928.

Yes, it looks fantastic.

That's my cousin's land there, that little point of land, you see, with the ... that piece on it.

What estuary is that, then?

That's the ... Is that the Feock?

Going that way, and that's the Fal, going out to Falmouth, the other side goes up to Truro, yes. Oh, it was a magical place in those days. Wonderful. But, you see, when I got down to my cousin's place, different relations of his, they called him "Uncle Norman" actually, Mr. Brumwell and his wife were staying there too, and they saw I was playing about with watercolours or something, and said ... this is how I remember it. "Would you like some real artists to come down?" And they got Ben and Winifred and Christopher Wood down, while I was there. Specially to sort of meet you? Well, I don't know how it worked out, but they were great friends of theirs, you see, they lived in Dulwich, I think, where Ben was at that time. Mmm. So the Brumwells, what, they came to stay with Norman, your cousin, or they were around? Oh, well, I don't know if they were staying with him or in one of his buildings or something. Yes, well, Rene's still alive. You haven't met her, have you? No, no. Really? Yes, she's still alive at Feock. They've got this marvellous house, well, she's got this marvellous house, which is ... Richard Rogers built.

Oh. How interesting.

Mmm. Her husband died a few years ago, but she's ... [INTERRUPTION] So, when you met up with Christopher Wood, perhaps if we can just talk about him first. You became quite friendly with him, didn't you? Yes, we used to go round together on the point there, that Winifred painted… [ph] and we went out in boats. And there's another tale you told about, I've seen written up, about when you went sailing with him and he met some Breton fishermen, or something. Is that right? Well, we went sailing on a very rough day, and we tore the peak of the mainsail, and we put into Falmouth, which, you know, is about five miles away, so that the boatmen could mend the sail. And we went ashore, and went up to the cafe to have tea until it was done. And he looked down and saw these Breton fishermen trying to get on the land, and they couldn't come, he said, "I'll go down and talk to them, perhaps I'll be able to do something, because I can speak French", and so he

negotiated with them, and gave them some money to come ashore, and they gave him a lobster, which we put in a bucket and took to sea afterwards. Mmm, I remember that very well. We then went our side of the river and across to the other river. Do you know what part I'm talking about? I dimly do. I don't, I mean, I know where the Helford River is on the map, yes. Yes, yes. So have you always been a good sailor? Well, well, after I'd been to Feock, yes, because my cousin lent me a little boat, and I used to go all over the place in that. Yes, that's the way to learn to sail, really, with a small boat. If you get into trouble, you do, you see! And then you must have had to do it a lot in, when you went to the Scilly Isles? I had my own boat in Scilly, yes. Yes, I had my own boat over there. And once when I was in hospital when I was in Norwich, I borrowed a boat and went sailing at Burnham-on-Crouch. Saw the Ocean Race, we went from Burnham across to Holland and back, yes. That must have been very competent. And did you feel sort of empathy with Christopher Wood, as a person? I mean, did you sort of gel with him?

Well, I didn't see much of his work, you see, at all.

Was he sketching?

He did a bit of that, but nothing very much. I remember Ben always had a great sketch pad. But Winifred, I hardly remember seeing at all, she was very sort of aloof. What, she didn't, she didn't sort of mix with you, or you don't remember her ... I don't remember her mixing with us much, no. No. I think she had ... I don't know which child it was. It might have been Kate, would it have been? It might have been. I think she was, was she born in 1929, Kate, actually? Perhaps she was pregnant or something. Perhaps she was expecting. I don't know. No, it was some child or other, I think.

But it was Ben who did the sketching. Did you go ... you went and actually accompanied him, didn't you? To St. Ives, didn't you? Later on? No. No, I didn't, I didn't. No, that's when they met Alfred Wallis, you see, but I don't remember anything about him at all, he never, I don't remember him saying anything about that. He never referred to it? He didn't come back, going, "Yippee, we've just discovered ..." No. It must have been at the same time, though. He and Kit Wood went over together. You see, after that, I had to get back. I think I came down to North Cornwall, to my mother's place, and had another few weeks down there, and then went back and had to work for my Finals, you see, and it was two years' hard work, and I never saw much of anything then.

And where was your mother's place then? What, the place where she was brought up?

Yes.

What, and some family still kept it, kept it on? Yes. Grandmother was alive, yes. Yes. Was that a farm, then? Yes. Yes. It was a few weeks before he died.. Yes, I know. I know. Yes, I'm just talking about Christopher Wood still. So he kept in touch with you by letter? A little bit, yes. Yes. , From ... writing to you in London when he was down in Cornwall, and he went to France too, didn't he?

I think...

To Brittany.

... I think he went for a long period in Brittany or somewhere, didn't he.

Yes.

And ended [ph] and then he came down and saw his mother in Salisbury, didn't he?

Yes, and that was the end, yes.

Did he seem a sort of melancholic kind of person, or not?

Pardon?

Did he seem a sort of melancholic kind of person when you met him? No, no, a most charming person, yes. A bad leg, I remember, which he was a little bit sort of conscious of. What, a sort of limp, you mean, or what? Yes, he had that, yes. But, no, I found him very ordinary, very ... well, not ordinary, but very, very, a very attractive person. I remember, I asked ... we were talking to Irene Brumwell some time back, when I took some friends over to see her, and we were asking about him, and she thought he was "dishy"! [Laughs] And Ben, what about Ben, was he dishy? Ben Nicholson, or not?

Well, no. Ben wasn't dishy. Ben was very serious in many ways, but he always had a rather schoolboyish sense of humour behind it all. But, you see, I kept in touch with him, and when they went back to wherever it was, in Hampstead, wasn't it.

Mmm, Park Hill Road, Mall Studios

Yes, there, I went to see him there once or twice.

Oh, did you. Oh, right. And then ... so you met Hepworth as well then, did you? I don't remember where I met Barbara first. I don't know when they split up [ In aud]

I think it must have been early, early thirties. I'll just check the dates. Ben met Barbara Hepworth in 1931, so by that stage, where were you? Well, I was ... gone off to hospital in Norwich, yes. So she might have been around when you went to the Mall Studios? She might have been, but I can't really remember. But I went there two or three times, I know, but then I was in the hospital, it must have been when I had a sort of short holiday or something, or a break in between courses, was, you know, called on Ben. I never met Mondrian, incidentally. No, I was going to ask about that, actually.

No. I met, my first, I think my first... I think the first thing I bought of Ben's was in 1934. And what was that?

A relief.

Oh yes, a little white relief. And have you still got that?

Still got it - the only one I've got left.

Did you buy quite a few bits and pieces over the years? You'll find that little relief towards the end of the book. That's it. And that one I had, too, the next one.

This one?

I had that one, yes.

We're talking about "1934 Project". Yes.

And it's got colour in it as well, has it?

Well, it's painted relief, mostly grey and an edge in red and black pencil.

And the other painting you're referring to is called painting, it's "1939 Painting". It's and oil and gouache which sounds very odd to me, but that's it, absolutely. But I had to sell all the others, because they were getting ... deteriorating with dampness. But this one I held on to, it was shown in a recent show in London. Yes. Mmm. And so were you ... when you were keeping in touch with Ben Nicholson, were you thinking in terms of, perhaps, being able to paint, yourself, more seriously? I suppose I must have done. Yes, I had an idea that when I went to Scilly, I'd go there for five years, and that's that. But actually, I got stuck there through the War, and I was nine years there. Yes. So that was when you'd finished your hospital work at Norwich, was it? Nottingham. At Nottingham, sorry. And also ... so you ... I'm just trying to think. So when you went over to the Scilly Isles, was that... I've got it written down as 1936, from another chronology. Would you think that's correct? 1936-45, yes. I came down to Cornwall to look for a practice, actually. Oh, did you? Well, my mother was ill, mentally ill, you see, so she was in a mental hospital for a time, and that was an awful strain. Oh dear, yes. Really terrible. And I was looking for somewhere down in Cornwall, and then I saw an advertisement for a place, I didn't know Scilly, but it sounded like somebody who liked the sea, and I thought, "Well, this sounds ..." I could cope with that, I couldn't cope with a GP who had to dress up and look smart all the time, I thought I could go about in a jersey, to hell with everybody else! It was all right. So that's how it... the chap who was in practice then, at the time, liked me, and we got on together, and so I went there.

Again, was it hospital work, or were you doing ... were you being a GP of some sort?

What, when I went to Scilly? Oh, just a GP. The only one, actually.

The only one? There are two now. So you had all the islands?

Yes. Yes. And I started a hospital thing when I was over there. Well, I didn't start, I... I...

You helped. I helped to get it going, yes. Somebody gave the money. Somebody who had retired over there, a Midlander or Northerner with lots of money, bought a farm over there, and wanted to do something. [JWs microphone now switched on] So where were you based when you were on the Scilly Isles? Were you based on one island? Is that where you lived?

St. Mary's is a big island, yes. That's the biggest one?

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

And you had your own house, did you?

Yes.

Or you were lodging with someone else?

Yes. Yes.

And did you have a studio?

But not my own house, this is the Duchy, it belonged to the Duchy of Cornwall, yes.

And did you have a studio at that point?

No, I had a ...

Or did you make a room ...

I had a room which I used for doing a bit of painting and that in there, yes.

And, at that point, were you ... what were your paintings like? Well, some were ... sort of based on the sea and that there, but I was also into some abstract stuff, you see, so I did some abstract drawings and things, I think, a bit, because we had a, an exhibition in the London Museum in 1942, something like that, isn't it?

I can look up on the date of that one.

I must have met Gabo already, I think.

Yes, because you were ... did you meet, you met him down here in Cornwall?

Yes.

Because you kept in touch with St. Ives, Carbis Bay, Newlyn. I must have done, yes, because if I got the chance, I used to come over to see Ben and Barbara when they moved down here. Mmm, mmm. And they moved down in '39, on the eve of war, didn't they? Yes. So, actually, going back, sorry, you know the one, the work that you had in the Daily Express Exhibition, what was that?

Oh, that was a bird, an ink drawing, which was pretty ... But you were saying that you exhibited at the London Museum. I think the Exhibition was called "New Movements in Art".

That's it. That's it.

London Museum, Lancaster House, 1942.

Yes. These friends of Ben, E.H. Ramsden and somebody else, they organised it, didn't they.

I think so, yes. Somebody called E.H. Ramsden, and they were friends of Ben's. And then, of course, I met Peter then. Peter was in that show. I don't think I'd met Peter then. I can't remember whether I met him after the War, or during the War.

He was probably away in the War, in 1942, wasn't he?

Mmm, yes.

So unless you'd met him before the War, you wouldn't have met him.

I doubt it if I'd met him ...

By then.

... I'm not sure, no. No.

And so what was the work like that you had in there?

I think these were just rather abstract drawings, I think.

What, pencil on paper, or ink, or what?

Gouache and pencil I think, yes.

Because you also, during the War years, you met Wilhemina Barns Graham, didn't you. I don't remember when I met her at all. Well, she remembers you, and it's been written down, in the St. Ives Catalogue, that you met in 1942. Did I really? Well, I don't remember, really. Honestly.

Oh, well, she remembers you bringing the most wonderful work, sort of oval...

Oh yes. ... a construction kind of thing, which she was very struck by. Because you were making, you were doing constructions at that time, weren't you? Yes, I did one or two little things like that, yes. Mmm.

End of Part 1 - F4044 Side A

Part 2 [Tape 1 Side B]

Yes, that's amazing, that was ... done with these little things for ... the centre of a plaster that we used for doing ... fractures, and that. And the rest of it was ... yes, that's rather nice. I like that thing I did, yes.

And the centre of a bandage?

That's right. That's it.

This is, what we're talking about is "Relief Construction", 1941, which is in the Tate Collection, and it's composed of... it's inscribed, I'm reading this out of the Tate Gallery Acquisitions Book. I can't remember which date it is. Inscribed "Relief Construction, made in Isles of Scilly/Cornwall, 1941, John Wells". And you've got gouache, pencil, string, cardboard ... on cardboard and perspex.

That's right, yes.

And you made a series of those sort of...

Well, not very many, a few. And there was one, I don't know whether any exist now, do they? Because they say in here, this note says, there's one called "Relief Construction No.2", which is owned by somebody called Anthony Fros...

Froshaug.

Froshaug, yes.

Yes, he died. I don't know what's happened to that. And you think that perhaps that one that belonged to him, and this one in the Tate, are the only two that survived out of the ones you did? I did two or three other things. I did a sort of relief construction, which somebody called Tambimuttu had, well, actually ...

The poet? ... in my first exhibition after the War, 1946, at the Lefevre, with Winifred Nicholson, and that one eventually went to America, and it was burnt, because they had too big a fire, and it burnt. But I wanted him to have it and I bought it, I paid the money for it, and he had it! Which was completely mad! But anyway, that was that one. Gone. I've got photographs of it somewhere. But it was a sort of painting and construction combined, you know. The painting and then these pieces of stone and masks and strings and things, you know, it was a sort of half and half between a painting and a sculpture. Mmm. And that's the one ... the one you've just described is the one that belonged to Anthony?

No. No.

That's another one?

This is the one that Tambi had, yes.

Oh, Tambimuttu.

Mmm. Right, I see. And there were, in that show that you had at Lefevre with Winifred Nicholson, you had paintings and constructions?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, Ben arranged that, you see. Ben very kindly did that for me.

And was it a success, that exhibition?

Well, I think I earned about £70, and I think Tambi spent it all on booze! But I met a lot of people, so in a way, it was worth it.

Yes. And that was 1946? Yes. Before that, in Scilly, I met Lucian Freud and Johnny Craxton over in Scilly,

they came over there, and I met them. And then there was Julian Trevelyan was doing it down here, the camouflaging all the pill-boxes and things like that and I think he came over there and I met him. Julian, yes. Yes. And do you, were you affected by the War on Scilly? Well, some of the time it was, yes. Yes. Quite worrying, quite disturbing, yes. Yes. Because, and did you find it helped, being on an island, with your work, with your art, the art that you were making? The constructions and the paintings and things, did you find it was quite useful to be shut off from other people? [Laughs] I don't know. I used to get everything I could to read, I took Horizon and all things like that, you know, and bought any books I could when I got the chance, mmm, yes. And Circle you'd had when it came out, did you?

Yes. Yes.

And that was earlier on, that was '37.

Yes. Mmm. Yes. And had you, at that point, you decided that you were going to ... once you'd finished, given yourself that goal of finishing in 1945, you were going to paint, no matter what happened? Yes. Yes. Yes. And the money you earnt as a doctor, was that enough, that was quite a decent salary? I actually saved a thousand pounds at the end of the War, and I reckoned I could live for five years on that, and if I couldn't make it then, that was it. But I managed to survive the five years, and bought that studio over there

Mmm, that's Anchor Studio.

Yes. Which is Stanhope Forbes' old studio. It was Stanhope Forbes' old teaching studio, where I went, actually, in 1928, too.

Had a month with him there, yes. The same year, yes. Yes. How I managed all that in that year, I don't know, but I did. And what was he like to work with? Well, he just came along and ... ' Daubed.

... corrected your thing a bit, you know. Yes.

Yes, he's probably, he'd passed his main ... Well, he was a charming old boy, you know, he'd come down and just look at your thing, and put a few touches on it, and things like that. I was very bad. Hopeless. But you bought that in, what, when you came back? I bought that, actually, first of all I had another little studio in the garden there, which he used to use for his ... casts, for drawing casts and things like that. And then when he died, I got, from his wife, I bought the other place. Yes.

And then the, the thing we're sitting in now, the building we're sitting in now.

That's right, yes.

That's what you bought?

No, no, no.

After you'd been in the garden?

No, no, that one over there, down the lane, yes.

Oh, sorry, right. This building here, when did you buy that one then, this one? This one? '66. And that's when Denis Mitchell and you started working? Well, I got, I was friends with Denis before that, you see, very friendly with him.

I don't know how I met him, but I did. He'd been down quite a long time, actually. He started painting and then working for Barbara. I worked for Barbara too, you see. Yes, I was going to ask you about that in a minute. Yes. And when this place came up, I daren't tell anybody about it, and I got it all fixed up before I told a soul. And then I told Denis, and said it was a marvellous place, and he came over and looked at it, and first of all, he brought this big one over. Oh no, it's not there! Where's it gone? Oh, it's gone down to Florence (France?? - 093), I beg your pardon. And then he gradually came over more and more, and eventually he found a house over here and bought that, and he and his wife moved over here, and uprooted himself from St. Ives, and worked here all the time. Because he'd appeared in St. Ives quite early on, hadn't he? Oh yes. I think it was well before the War, I think, yes. Mmm. And his brother had this pub, you see, where he'd have little exhibitions in there.

Yes. The Castle?

The Castle, that's right, yes, mmm.

And did you show your work there? Yes, you did, didn't you.

Yes, I did, yes.

As well as at The Crypt? Well, the Crypt, yes. There were three Crypt things, yes, that was in the base of the old Mariners Church, yes. Yes. And then before that, the St. Ives Society of Artists it was, wasn't it? Oh, we showed there once or twice before yes, because they didn't like us at all, so they put us in one corner there! Yes, round the font.

Mmm. Mmm.

And did you also show ... you showed, didn't you, at Downings Bookshop?

Yes, that's right. Yes. Yes.

And then you broke away from, you decided to form the Penwith Society?

Yes, that was...

That was in '49.

... Ben and Barbara and co, yes. Yes. But just going back to when you were on the Scilly Isles, I never know, is it called the Isles of Scilly, the Scilly Isles, or the Scillies?

Yes. I never know which is correct!

Anything. Well...

Some people get a bit funny about it.

The Isles of Scilly, really. Yes. What, well, did then John Craxton and Tucian Freud, who must have been quite young then, Lucian Freud ... Oh yes, they were quite young, yes. But did, did they come and seek you out because they'd heard of you, or did... or was it a chance meeting? I think we just met by chance, I think, yes. You didn't, you didn't draw together, or anything like that? Oh no, no, no, no. No, no. I don't know how long they were there for. I met them afterwards ... I knew ... particularly Lucian, I knew, saw quite a hit of him when I had my show in London, you see.

What, the one in ...

With Winifred, there.

That one at the Lefevre?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And now he's famous and a millionaire! Yes.

But then also another person you met quite early on, was Gabo, yes?

Yes.

I've got a note there that you met him in 1940. Would you say that's correct? Well, I can't remember when at all. But, I mean, he had an enormous effect on me, actually, yes. You met him ... Very fond of him. Very deeply fond of him, you know. And I bought one or two of his things, his little ... very rough table, working table, and fluorescent light, when he went away to America. It must have been very sad. And he gave me a few pieces of off-cuts of aluminium and that, which he'd used, and all that sort of thing, and ... I used to go for walks with him when I got the chance, when I got over there, you know, and talked to him quite a bit. He was a lovely man. A lovely man. And it was sad that he sort of didn't stay here really, wasn't it? Do you think it was a good move for him to go to America? Or as it happened, it probably was.

Well, I don't really know, really, because ... was his wife American?

Miriam? She was ...

Miriam.

She was called Miriam Israel, wasn't she?

Yes, she was Jewish, I think, yes.

Jewish origin, yes. Yes. Yes. Well, I got, I knew her quite well, you see. Yes, and the child, their little son, (sic), Nina, was it? Mmm. Nina, yes. But when you were doing your work on the Scilly Isles, apart from the constructions, you were doing painting as well, weren't you?

Yes.

That was very non-objective, wasn't it? It was totally non-figurative.

Not totally, no. Some of the things were semi-abstract. Have you got any photographs of them, of the things? I mean, I've got a few here, but then you could ... so you could describe them a bit. Is it difficult for you to lay your hands on some? I've got one or two cards and things, I think. Well, we can look at some things in reproduction in here, anyway, yes. Because you've written about... you used to use a turn-table.

Oh, that was a harmonograph thing, oh, that was ...

For print-making.

Well...

Sort of. For drawing, making funny drawings, yes. I set that up in the studio over there, but eventually I got... it made me seasick, the rhythm, it used to go round and ... there was a pendulum above and this other thing moving around, and it used to

make these rather beautiful, or could do, abstract drawings, you see.

What, you attach...

Pardon?

Sorry. Did you attach sort of ink or something, on to ... I had a pen, had a pen working on it, yes. But it didn't work very well and I got fed up with it in the end, and tore it down, yes. And have you got any examples of those still, or not? No. I never got anything really good out of it, actually. Mmm. No.

Right, I'm just going to look for a photograph of something to show you. [PAUSE - TW and JW go to adjoining room to look at paintings by JW] Okay, now we've gone next door, where we're looking at an upright painting, "Variation", it's 1963, ... "Composition, 1963,Variation I". Yes, that was for my second show at Waddingtons, when I started doing these ones, which, in a proportion of seven, and that was the first one of those I did, and I think was the best, and I did five or six of them, I think, and they're all ... the other ones have gone. And the dimensions, are the dimensions on the back? No. It's probably about, about five foot high?

Yes, I suppose it is.

By about 20 inches.

Yes, would be, wouldn't it, yes.

In width.

Mmm.

And on the wall there, the construction is related to this?

Yes. Well, roughly about the same time, yes. Yes.

And this is on ...

That's on hardboard.

Hardboard.

Yes.

And can you tell me, how do you prepare the surface? Do you do ... what do you do with it? Just rub it down and put some ... probably flat white on it. Flat white and then rub it down again. And you rub it down with ... Sandpaper, yes. Sandpaper. Yes. Yes. Yes. And draw it all out, and then paint it. And these come as a sort of... the basic ground, most of the ground is a sort of beigy sort of colour, isn't it?.

Yes. Yes.

Yes, you've got the white, olive green.

Yes, that's a very, very ... restrained colour, this one, yes.

A sort of warm... warm kind of... the overall impression is cool colours, isn't it?

Yes. Yes. But that colour there is quite a warm, kind of rosy tint to the grey, isn't it, that one there. Do you think? Or not? Mmm, I wouldn't call it rosy, but it's slightly warmer, yes. Yes. Yes.

And anything else in here? I mean, there's so many things, obviously! [Laughs] Well, that's one that's come back for cleaning up again. It's just three, three squares with circles in them.

And what sort of date is this one?

I don't know. I never know until... I look at it.

You're very good at marking the back.

Oh yes, I do that.

Rellief..... "Three circles in squares", you've got a ... 1967.

Yes, 1967 that would be. And that again, what is the medium? What's that at the back? Is it on hardboard?

It's hardboard again, I think, yes. Different depths of hardboard, yes.

And even these ...squares with circles in ? Yes, that's ... well, it's not hardboard, but it's something like it. Yes, yes. Mmm. Oh, you've ... this one is one I've painted out with a very thin white, and it's gradually coming through again. It's a sort of... under the sea sort of fantasy, really. So you put on the white much later, did you? It's painted, yes, but I scrubbed it all over with a very thin white, and it's gradually becoming more transparent, and the background is coming through now.

Mmm. Can I just see what date is one the back?

Yes, by all means.

Oh, it doesn't actually give a date. You've got a number here, "90/16".

Well, that's just the number of it, oh yes, perhaps I haven't given it a title. Haven't I given it ... surely there's a date on it? Should be.

That's an old...

No. No, I don't think I have, because I don't remember what date it was.

Would it be perhaps fifties, originally, would it? Yes, it might well be, yes. Yes. Very little, very late works, I never finished ... this sort of thing I started doing a year or two ago, and then I never finished it. A collaged... Yes, a collage mounting stuff. Sort of lint?

And canvas collaged on...

Yes, that's right.

And what's that? Oh, a lump of paint! [Laughs] There's another one at the back here, which is the only one of the later ones, I don't know if you can get that out. You might be able to. Bring it up this way.

I might just turn this off at the moment. [PAUSE] Okay this one is "Vol de Nuit", 1984-85. Oh yes. Let's have a look. I haven't looked at this for two or three years

I'll hold it here, if you like.

It shouldn't be up against there.

No, I'll hold it, so it doesn't go over.

No, it doesn't matter against that, it'll be all right.

So there, it's onboard, it's onboard, and ... with things collaged.

Yes.

Again, using that lint.

That's right, yes, yes.

And that there, again is that a lump of paint?

Yes, a lump of paint there, yes.

Have you ever exhibited these ones? No. Well, I think that one might have been exhibited once, that's all. Mmm. Where? Down here? At the Newlyn, I think it was. I can't really see it. But that blue was rather beautiful, actually.

Yes.

Mmm. "Vol de Nuit", do you know what that refers to?

Night flight?

You know Saint Exupery.

Yes.

You read him?

I have read that, dimly, in the dim and distant past. Oh really, yes. Well, I was very keen on Saint Exupery, actually, at one time.

Well, I still am, but I haven't read him for quite a while. But he talks about this fantastic business of... putting on his clothes to go out and fight, go out in his aeroplane over the, over the War, and then coming back again to the sort of cottage in the country. Oh, it was extraordinary, really.

I must re-read him.

Mmm.

And that blue is like a lapis kind of blue, isn't it, which is nice. Mmm. Ultra, French Ultra, really, I think it is, yes. But it's quite luminous. I haven't looked at this for years, several years, whatever time it was. What was it? Have you found the date? Yes. It was written on the back, ... '84-'85. Oh, my God, that's ten years ago, you see, isn't it! Yes, it is. Good gracious! It means I haven't really done anything for ten years! [Laughs] Are those your cards down there? Yes. I'll pick them up. Yes, well, we'll put this back. Right. We're now looking at a painting of yours that you've recently bought back, because it was found in London at an auction, you think.

Yes. And it's called, "The Country Below", 1951-52. Yes. Would you say that when you came back to live permanently in this, in Newlyn, that you couldn't help but be affected by the landscape? Did that become more important? I think so, yes. Before, you'd been doing more purely abstract things, on the whole, hadn't you. And suddenly... Yes. Yes. ... your things become more organic, would you say? I don't want to put words

into your mouth. Urn, well, it's still a very abstract picture, isn't it, but it's just... the idea of the country is there, you see.

And this is, is this on board again, or a canvas board?

It looks like a canvas, doesn't it.

Or is it the back of the board? The bumpy side.

I think it's the board, isn't it. Yes, it's board again, I would say. But a much rougher board, because quite often your work is incredibly smooth, like the thing we were looking ...

Some of it is, some of it is, yes.

Well, that sixties, the tall, the 1963 one, was.

Yes.

And you won a prize, didn't you, an art critic's prize, at around this sort of time, 1951.

Oh, that's right. That was, yes.

For a landscape ...

That's right.

A landscape shape.

Mmm.

And it was more of a landscape, wasn't it?

That was very much a landscape. I think it's one called "Vista", wasn't it?

I'll double-check.

That Paul Hodin had.

Yes. Yes, well, Paul was one of the critics, yes. Yes. Well, I tried to get out of that, I didn't want it, I didn't think I deserved it, but Peter, Peter got very annoyed with me, and told me I'd got to have it!

Peter who? Peter Lanyon?

Lanyon, yes. I think it worried me, that. Mmmm. [Laughs]

Is that your only prize?

Oh yes.

I mean, there are not many prizes anyway. Yes, yes, yes. You see these are ones that all want a bit of touching up, yes. That's made out of matchboxes, this little relief. And when was that done? When did you do that? Oh, years ago, I think. Twenty years ago, I expect. Yes. One or two things here which may, I might be able to finish one day, I don't know. I doubt it.

That one's finished, though, isn't it. That one?

No, not really. Just...

Can I have a look?

Yes, by all means.

What's that?

Mmm? What's that? Oh, that's a fish.

Is that by you?

A fossilised fish. No, no, no. Gilly gave it me, yes. Can you manage?

Yes. And that's the right way up, isn't it, it's a long, horizontal one.

Yes, I suppose it is, yes! Yes.

It's got no clues on the back at all! But you'd remember when that was, vaguely, would you?

No, I wouldn't.

Oh! Is it sixties?

I've no idea. If I haven't got it on the back, I don't know.

Because you're usually very good about marking things on the back.

Mmm, some of them. Some of them. And...

And what's this one? That's more recent, is it? That's a very ... I don't know, I never know what date they are. If you can see on the back of it, it'll tell you. It's one Gilly framed up, I didn't like the frame but he's done it rather well, actually. It looks quite impressive now.

Yes, sort of double ...

It's nice, can you see the ... date on that?

Yes, 1964-1967, "Three Squares".

Yes. That's right. A very exciting title! That's we can lean it against there.

And this, did you do ... is this part of the work?

That was part of the original framing, actually, but Gilly's done it very well, actually ...

So this was painted by you, was it?

... and incorporated that into it. Oh yes, yes. I see. A black, and turquoise and red square on a, floating on a ...what blue would you call that, again? Well, that is really a French Ultra, really, I think, with a lot of varnish with it, so it's transparent, more or less, mmm. But it's very effective those squares, because you don't know where they are. Mmm, well, you get this business of space, don't you, mmm. And that one, it's just a sort of forest one, which came out, I don't know how it got like that, but it did .

But no clues at the back.

Aren't there?

Just your note, "92/2" it says, but that's just your numbering system.

Well, that's my number. There's another one, a couple here again.

Oh.

Two different ones. Oh yes.

Can I feel it?

Feel it?

Yes. It's unglazed. Oh yes, by all means. So that's on a much smoother board. These are more sixties-like, aren't they? Am I right in thinking? That one?

I don't know.

They're more square.

It should say on the back somewhere. I don't think it does, does it?

It doesn't, no. No.

That's another one, which ... has that got a ...

Yes, this is. '59-'60.

Yes.

But it doesn't have a title.

No, it wouldn't have a title, no.

And that's overlapping ... These are more or less discarded, and then Gilly comes along and says, "Oh, I'll frame that up and see what it looks like", and you suddenly find it's not so bad as

you thought it was! [Laughs] But he has been your dealer, exclusively, in recent years, hasn't he? Well, I used to show at the both, both the galleries here, Newlyn and St. Ives. But since I've been letting Gilly have more, I haven't bothered with them. You mean the Newlyn Orion, you've been exhibiting in? Yes, the Newlyn Orion and the, and the Penwith. Yes, the Penwith Society. Yes. Yes. Because you don't like to let your work go out to other people, do you? People often are interested, aren't they? Um, not very keen, not very keen. I was going to show you, you saw these woodcuts, not woodcuts, they're cuts of... I did for Christmas cards, you see.

Hardboard. Yes, I think I've seen some of your Christmas cards. Yes.

And I think I've got a few prints here that I'll show you, that I've done from them.

It's much more difficult working in hardboard than lino, presumably?

Well, it's ... a little bit. Now, you see, those are things that I've made, you see.

Yes, I think I've seen ... the odd one of them.

Well, I... you know ...

Yes, they're very effective, aren't they? So you do several different inkings? Oh, we did a lot of, a lot of extra printings, all over the place, yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And have you ever done any monotype? No, I've never managed that. No. All sorts. Well, a lot of these are ... that's actually a linocut. Mrnrn, very fine lines. Yes, yes, yes. And we print it with this thing, you see, that's an old, an old naval press which I picked up.

Naval press, is it?

Yes. They used to be able to print, or reproduce letters somehow, with that thing.

Oh, is that when they used ... I don't know how they did it, but it's a marvellous, marvellous thing, it cost me five quid at a junk shop, and it's a hell of a weight! Brilliant! But it was a beautiful thing. I had to have it welded up, actually, when I got it home, because it had split up there. But both Denis and I have done a lot of work with that. He did all his Christmas cards with it, and ... I've used that, and done extra printings and things like that with it. It's very good. Mmm. Yes. [PAUSE] Okay, so now we're in another part of your studio, and you have found one of your really early collages that you did when you were on the Scilly Isles, 1941 collage, made in St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly. Yes. Do you want to describe that? What... the bottom layer is cardboard? It's an ordinary piece of cardboard, yes. Yes, and ... it's gouache and ink and different sorts of paper collaged on to it. And on one of the pieces of paper, well, two, there's a circle where you probably used the, the turn-table that you... That's a little tiny turn-table, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. But I've got hundreds of those, actually. And there will be the ... the white is ... Is gouache. Is gouache, and they have, they've become string in some of your other constructions. That's right, yes. Yes. I didn't realise I was doing such abstract work in 1941. It's amazing! [Laughs] And then this one, had you left the Scilly Isles by that time? Oh yes, it's got your address here, Anchor Studio.

Yes.

I don't know whether it meant that you did it then, or not.

Yes, it must have been just after the War, that.

Yes, 1945. It's called "Disc and Circle".

1945?

Yes.

Oh, really! Yes. That's right, yes. So this is, you were saying this was at the same time that you did the, the work called "Listening".

Yes.

Which has been seen more often, hasn't it?

Yes.

It's in that exhibition at the New Art Centre (London), called "Cornwall", wasn't it?

Yes. Yes. End of Part 2 - F4044 Side B

Part 3 [Tape 2 Side A]

John Wells talking to Tamsyn Woolcombe at his studio in Newlyn, on 7 June, 1994.

So, we were talking about this ...

That one.

This one, which was, as we said, "Disc and Circle", 1945, done at the same time as that slightly more famous, the one that's been seen more, called "Listening".

I think Gilly's got that, hasn't he?

Yes, he has.

Yes, he certainly has.

Yes, he has now, but it's also been at the New Arts Centre in that Cornish Exhibition.

Mmm.

So, this surface here is much ... it's different, isn't it? It's rougher.

Yes.

How was that...

It's rougher.

Well, I mean, the basic, sorry, the bottom layer, I don't know, is that that board? It was something very funny. I had some stuff, I think it was called new enamel, and that was put on and then rubbed off a bit, and that was extraordinary stuff.

That kind of... khaki... That's what the background is, and the rest is ordinary oil paint. I see.

Yes.

So that grey here, is that part of it as well?

Which grey?

This grey part here, is that enamel? Yes. No, no, no, that's, that's the mount, isn't it. That's the mount, it's painted with a different colour, yes.

Yes. And then this sort of khaki colour is ... is the enamel?

I think the enamel, yes, the new enamel stuff, yes.

And did you use a razor blade ever to get... to scrape away with?

No, I didn't, no. A surgical knife or something like that, I think, yes.

A blade, anyway.

Yes.

And then to get these shapes, the black shape, did you sort of mask out?

No, I think I probably ...

To get this very sharp line?

No, I think I probably drew them out with a, with a ... proper arc ...

With a geometrical...

Geometrical machine, yes. Yes. Well, machine, it sounds like it, but it's ...

Yes, it makes a ...

Draw a perfect curve, yes. Compasses? A pair of compasses? Well, in fact, a long compass, it was a beam compass, put the pieces together, because I always wanted to give Ben one of those, because he admired it. Three pieces went together, so you've got a long, long arc, yes. A very long arc, yes.

So a lot of your work, even the later work, has very sharp good lines between each colour.

Well, I tried to do that, yes.

And do you do that by ... manually?

Oh yes.

Do you mask it out with anything?

No, not ...

Or do you do it by eye? Not very much, no, I hardly ever use mask, because you usually pull the paint off on the other side for that.

And this, and then ... did you incise that?

I would have done that, yes.

To remove the paint?

Yes. Yes.

To remove that layer ...

Yes, because. the white underneath the grey here, you see. It's white paint underneath the grey here, yes.

And did you ever collage kind of shapes on?

Not very often.

With the oils.

Not with the oils, no.

No.

Right. Well, actually, that relief there, that's got collage on it, that's ... I've done that with collage, you see. Yes.

Yes. I wonder what date that one is?

I don't know.

1969-74.

That's right, yes. It takes a long time with that. And that, you've got the as the ground, the hardboard itself, the rough side, which

you've left untouched.

I think so, yes.

You haven't touched it, have you? At the bottom there? Well, perhaps you have. I don't know whether I have or not.

And then the colour bleeds into it, so it shows off the texture quite well.

Yes, yes, that's right.

And is that driftwood on it?

No, I think it's just bits of hardboard.

Can I just, I'm going to look it up and see what the title is.

By all means. It's called "Relief, I expect.

Yes, "Painted Relief”. Yes. No, I rather like that one, nobody seemed to care for it, so there we are, I've still got it, which I'm always glad to have. And there's a more definite ... That is ... definitely a landscape feeling, I said to Gilly, "You never look at this, do you?". "Oh", he said, "I've seen it every time I come in". "Well, what about framing it up?" And he did that the other day, and it's almost a complete landscape now.

Mmm. Mmm.

Very simple.

And did you ever go and draw in the landscape around here?

Oh yes, I used to draw on the cliffs a lot, yes, mmm. Go out on my bike and get on the cliffs a lot, yes. And have you got those sketch books still? Mmm, I never show them! And did you draw, when you draw, drew in the landscape, was it... was it naturalistic drawing? Oh yes. Oh yes. Mmm. And did you refer to them again when you were doing a painting like, like this one?

Erm...

Or did you just... sunk in? Generally, it sank in, I think, yes. I've only got one thing I did, actually, a painting of. I've got the drawing and the painting. It's come out of it somewhere here, I don't know where it is. It's a long one. That landscape we've just been talking about, the one that Gilly framed up, has not got a title, but it has got a date. Yes.

1955.

Oh yes. That's right.

And it's a long, thin landscape.

No, that's not it. Somewhere ...

What's that?

Mmm?

What's that one you've just touched?

There?

Yes. Is that you?

That's not me, no. I can't see it, really. No, that's um ... who was at the Tate before Alan? Reid, Norman Reid. Sir Norman Reid, yes. Oh, right.

Yes. Well, I bought it because it's Feock again, you see.

Yes, I wondered whether it was, yes. Oh yes. Yes. That's one I've had framed up recently again. I did that in Scilly, I know that. It was an old rotting, rotting battery on the shore, on the cliffs, and it had weathered to this marvellous greens and that, and I've got to repaint some of the greens because they've faded. Mmm, a battery top.

"Screen of Eyes".

Yes.

1945.

Yes. Mmm. That's it. And then, did you want to talk about... this one? Here? Was it... you wanted to talk about? Ah, that's the "Gaboid", yes. Yes. Well, I've only called it a "Gaboid" recently, but it is very much a ... very much influenced by Gabo. 1948. Yes. And you had it, you showed it in ... Catalogue number 44 in the joint exhibition you had at Plymouth, with the art galleries.

Yes. Oh yes. McKenzie, Mitchell, Wells, in 1975.

Yes. Yes. Well, then, you can see there's a lot of Gabo feeling about it.

Yes. The shapes are sort of transparent. Mmm, well, it's just done purely ... I don't know how I managed to do this beautiful curve, this, you see? I don't know how I managed that. I don't know. But I did it! And you've got sort of tension again, with kind of... what could these ... radiating lines. Yes, yes, yes, a few of those, yes. Mmm, that's because it's painted on a horrible old painting. I always do that, do the best things on some awful old painting which I've discarded. [Laughs] Which is wicked, really! And how do you get this sort of white, soft... this sort of smudging, more like the smudging, say that blue and that white? Well, you just, you just bleed it off with your brush, you see. Yes, yes, yes. Mmm. Now, if you put that along here a little bit... oh, that was the one from a drawing on the cliffs that I've ... I did it quite a while a go, but that's definitely from a drawing on the cliff, and I've got the cliff drawing framed up somewhere, but I don't know where on earth it is.

What sort of date is this one, then?

I don't know.

This is a sort of grey and terracotta kind of colours.

Yes. Actually, Wilhemina Barns Graham was talking about a piece of terracotta kind of, of stone, you gave her once. Yes. Oh yes, I found that on the Lizard, that's right. Some ... weathered serpentine rock, yes.

Mmm, and you were able to sort of crumble it.

Yes, that's right, yes. Yes.

And this one, this looks ... oh! That's another very landscapey one! Yes, that really is a landscape, yes. That's, I called it "Journey". That was with Peter, from Cornwall, which is supposed to be the top part, into this sort of whitish landscape, which is ... Wiltshire. We went to Corsham and then down to Chichester, yes. Oh, right. That's very good. What date is that one? Early fifties, again, is it? That was exhibited at Newlyn Orion, "Looking West", 1987. That was that big, quite a big show that toured, and went to the Royal College of Art, and it's ... yeah, as you say, "Journey", 1955.

Mmm, yes.

And is this one ... this one looks something to do with a boat.

Oh, that's a, a little landscape, a little village in the ... yes, an old one. Very old.

1948, "Village".

Yes. Yes. Nearly all these things are made up, you see, they don't...

Oh yes. And the landscape is green ...

Pardon?

No, I was just looking at the ... The colour of that is not good. It's lost, it hasn't got... the colour in this one is much better than the one on the card. I've got a card of it, but it's too warm, I think. And again, quite a dry, your paint is quite dry, isn't it, in certain places, on this. Well, it is. I don't really know, I don't really slosh it about as a rule.

But you've moved away from ... you started more ... I mean, in the forties you were abstract, pure, really, weren't you? Mmm, yes. Yes. Then you started becoming more ... doing more organicky things and relating to the landscape.

Mmm, yes.

And then you moved away from it again, didn't you?

Then bits of... both, yes.

But there was a time when you did both at the same time, practically.

Both at the same time, yes.

In the mid-fiftiesish, because there's one at the Tate that has been given by Ken Powell. Oh?

Of yours. The Tate, St. Ives, hanging.

Oh, that one. Oh yes, I know the one, yes. And then there's another one, which I think is the same year, which is not, which was bequeathed by a Miss Hodgkins. Do you know the one I mean?

Is that the bird one?

No, it's not the bird one.

Not the big one? Not the ...

It's not the "Aspiring Forms", it's not the bird one, but another one.

A kind of a rough texture on it, hasn't it?

Yes.

Oh, that's a Mary Hodgkins? I didn't realise that.

Yes.

Mmm, she picked some rather quite nice ones! And that one, I think I'm right, I've got a note of exactly what date it was next door, but that, you were doing that more organicky one and the more pure abstract at the same time. But then what happened? Then you decided to ... move away from the landscape ones, did you? On purpose, or did it just happen?

When are you talking about now?

Well, I'm talking about towards the end of the fifties, early sixties. Well, I had the two shows at...

At Waddington, yes. At Waddingtons. The first one was fairly organic, you know, fairly organic landscapes and things like that. And the second one was very abstract, like that one in there. And I told ... at Waddington, that I'd moved away from the organic ones, and he must come down and see them, otherwise I couldn't have the show. And he came down, and said, "All right, we'll have the show". Well, the first show was really ... I sold a lot of them. And the second one wasn't so good at all.

But you still stuck in that mould though, didn't you, because you, you've remained ...

Yes. Yes. Yes.

... not referring to landscape or more organic forms.

Yes. Latterly, haven't you? Yes. So Miss Hodgkins that came, did she ... that bequeathed those things to the Tate, a lot, a big collection to the Tate, did she actually come to your studio? No, I think she bought them from the Penwith. I Oh, right. Yes. Oh yes. Yes. I think so, mmm. Well, there's a ... there's one of my favourite shapes, this oval.

Mmm, yes.

Very plain. It's rather fun, because you can ...

Gosh, that's 1946!

Yes. Yes.

I wonder whether that was one that Wilhemina Barns Graham was ...

Might have been.

Gosh, I didn't know it was as early as that. Because that's got... sort of... three- dimension.

Well, you can alter it into a ... into a convex or concave.

Yes, I've just suddenly seen. By an act of will. As well as changing it, you see, if the light's coming from the right, it's definitely con, convex, isn't it? Yes. Yes. But if you think of that as the hollow, you know, you can switch it by ... mentally actually, it's quite an interesting thing that.

Did you realise that as you were doing it?

No, I don't think so. No, I didn't. That is a Christopher Wood of, of Feock. Yes.

Oh! And that's the point of the land, it's very slight. And the boats. But I got it from Gilly because it was so personal to me, you know. Yes, of course. Yes. So there we are. And that little Yves Tanguy (or Tanguey) there,... Lucian gave me that.

Oh, really. Recently?

No, no. Forty years ago! He said, "I think I've seen this enough now, you can have it".

Oh, that's nice. A little etching.

Yes. It's quite special, really, in a way, the way things have gone.

And what's that boat thing behind here?

Oh, that's one I bought from Gilly, it's a ... more or less a primitive, you know.

Yes.

Do you own any Wallis, or not? Gilly's got all mine there, I think. No, I've got one or two not framed up. But he had a recent one, the last one of mine the other day. And did you meet? No, never.

You never met him?

Never. No, no, no. Oh, that's a little ...

1968.

Mmm.

"The Autumn" is it called? I can't... I don't know, I can't...

Pardon?

I can't read what it's called. I don't know quite what it is.

Well, I certainly haven't...

It's got mould in it.

Yes, well, that's easy enough to clean off.

And what's this? That's by George Dannatt's, it's not mine. Those are, that's a Sven. That's one from Scilly, on the left there. Now, that's definitely a ... taken from the ... yes, that's that one there. But that one is, yes, that's a very early one.

"Sea Fringe".

"Sea Fringe", yes.

1939!

Yes. Yes. And actually, this ... is it that way, in fact? Well, it could be any way, yes. It's looking down on the sea from these white rocks

with the little pools in it, you see. And actually, one of the fighter pilots who came over there during the War said, "From very high up, the islands look like that". Oh, right. This is a military ... when you look down from a great height, they look like that, the islands, with a fringe of sea right round them.

Oh, that's a white ... oh, is this you too?

Yes.

Very early.

Oh, they're lovely!

[Laughs] Yes.

When is that one? Oh, here we are, 1937. This is of a lighthouse.

Well, it's a sort of an imaginary thing. Well, I'm just trying to describe it to ... You haven't called it anything. Oh! Hold on a minute. You've got "Ditchling" here.

Yes, well...

You've got...

Oh, well, that's the bit of... Ditchling, mmm.

And on, this is a nice rough board, isn't it? It's very textural, this whole painting, isn't it?

Is it done on a bit of canvas? I don't remember. I think it's just board. I think it's just board, but it's quite nice and rough, isn't it?

Mmm.

And you've got clouds, sort of rather an art deco feeling around the place, too.

Well, that's sort of semi-cubist sort of thing, yes. Yes, with this central lighthouse, it looks a bit more like ... I mean, it doesn't really look Wallis, but, I mean ...

No, it isn't Wallis.

No, it isn't. And then there's this one. Is this even earlier?

Well, that's pretty early, I think. I don't know what date I put on it. Can you see?

That's an estuary with boats. Well, that's, that's North Cornwall, you see, that's near my mother's home, the cliffs, actually, by the farm.

"Cove", 1930.

Yes. That's about it, yes.

And you exhibited that at the Newlyn Orion, in the "Looking West" Exhibition.

Yes. You see, this is a lovely bit of Russian crash, this canvas, I think.

Russian what?

Russian crash, they call it. Mmm.

With a nice weave.

Wonderful, wonderful peasant linen, yes. That's one of the cliffs there.

And whereabouts in North Cornwall was this?

Oh, that's near, near Padstow, yes. Yes.

And then, behind here, we've got the one, is it "Crystals"?

No, that's "Music in the Garden".

Oh, "Music in the Garden".

Yes. That's music in the garden, too ... that damned things coming through the wall!

(Ivy coming through the window).

I commented on that the other day.

Do you want to talk about this one, a bit? Well, it's just an abstract thing with a, it's worked on a grid, you can see how I've kept all the blue lines, you see, and just... worked it out as I went along, and it seemed to me it was "Music in the Garden", that's all, you know! Nice colours when you can see them, but you can't see them there, because they're ... they're shrouded out. Oh, my God, look at that! Yes, it's terrible. So, the sort of colour, the background colour, what colour would you call that? I don't know, it's a warm, warm brown isn't it, really. Reddish-brown, yes. Funny sort of colour, the sort of colour I wouldn't use in the ordinary way, but it happened that way. I don't know how that happened. And that was exhibited at the Tate, St. Ives, Exhibition? Yes. As in, I mean, the big one, the Tate Exhibition in London. Yes, it was. I know it was. And it's 19 ... 1947. Oh, '47, is it? Yes, mmm. Yes, there's nothing much there, I don't think. Ah, two side by side. Mmm. Oh, those are two variations, yes, of the same thing, yes. I did one or two

things like that.

And what date is that one?

It would be 1964.

"Inversion Variation", 1960 ... I can't quite read it, '67,1 think.

Probably about that, yes. Yes.

And those are very ... those are rather unusual colours for you.

Yes, yes.

That minty green and ...

Yes, mmm. But you do use that sort of purple, don't you. Not mauve, that... what would you call it? Lilac and.. Violet. Yes, yes, I try and use that sometimes, but it's a difficult thing to use. And that pink down in the bottom, that's quite unusual isn't it, for you? Yes. Yes. Yes. And that's a little nocturne, I think, that's an old one too. See if you can get the light on that.

Oh yes. 1947, "Windows on the Night".

Yes. A romantic title!

That's when you'd come back to these parts.

Yes.

Again, with that same, similar kind of warm brown background to the "Listening in

the Night", but no, it's not ...

No, it's not, no ...

It's not actually ...

It's a sort of purpley background that one, I think. Yes.

And that's another 1947. Oh, that's, yes, that's ... "Figure in Oval", yes. Well, that's the oval, you see, with a figure ... with a sort of abstract figure in the middle. Yes, that's going right back, I think, isn't it. Mmm. Okay, well, this one we're looking at, is "The first painting after ..." I'm just trying to read the back. "... I lost the sight of my right eye", December, 1957, painted circa January 1958. Mmm. Yeah. And you say you called it 'In the Country of the Blind'. Well, an eye came into it, that there, purely unconsciously, you see, with this blood in it. It's a landscape.

A landscape.

A bit of Peter in it.

Mmm. And did you go sketching with Peter Lanyon? Well, yes, I used to go out with him, yes. But he did ... well, we used to go out on the cliffs, I don't know whether he, he drew a bit, I think. I don't think I did when anybody was about, I don't like drawing in front of anybody, especially Peter! Why? Well, I don't know, I mean, he was so good, you see. Yes. Not because, no, I thought you might think that someone would take your idea, or something like tha Oh no! No, no. No. Those are Gabo's off-cuts he gave me, where he's cut a piece out for his constructions, you see.

What is it, aluminium? Mmm. Yes. But... those are two of Denis Mitchell's sculptures which he gave me, and I want to give to the Tate, actually, because they're lovely little ones, I think. Very good. End of Part 3 - F4045 Side A

Part 4 [Tape 2 Side B]

We're just looking at...

I usually used to draw a grid of the golden section, you see, both ways, then draw a lot of lines around, and, well, you can see that it's built up of two verticals there, which are the ... more or less the golden section, and the same at the bottom there, and then I worked it out as it went along. I don't know how it happened, it just grew ... did itself, you know!

And can we just say the title of it for the sake of this tape?

Well, "Aspiring Forms", well, I feel they are going upwards, and reaching out to something out of sight in the, in the ... outside the picture.

And it's dated 1950.

Yes.

And oil on canvas and it's ...

Well, I worked on that a long time, and I remember, I got so mad with it, I threw a bicycle lamp through it somewhere down here, and it went right, it didn't go right through with a hole, but it knocked the hardboard back in a great flap of... and I wrote something on the back or something, and Willy came in one day and said, "What on earth did you do that for? It's a good picture". So then I pressed it back, and glued it back, and re-worked on it, and you can only just see it if you know it's there.

Well, I'll have to look at it, because it's obviously in the Tate at St. Ives at the moment, isn't it?

Yes. Yes.

And that one is also one of the ones that was bequeathed by Miss Hodgkins. Miss Hodgkins, that's right. Well, Denis got that into his sculptures as well, you see, a great deal of it. He agrees with that. I mean, that's fair enough. We were friends, and he found that was a very sculptural form, you see. Yes, very much so. Well, it comes into there, look, you see.

And, in fact, they're displayed next...

Yes, it's rather good, I think. His work looks beautiful, actually.

Yes. Yes.

Very sort of... atmospheric, and the polished against the white is marvellous. I thoughlj it was behind glass actually, and it looked really wonderful in there. Very good. It's ... partly it comes out of sitting on the cliffs and watching the birds, but particularly fulmar petrels, do you know what they are?

No.

Well, they're not an ordinary gull, they're a different sort of... not the old herring gull, these are fulmars, they call them, or fulmars, I don't know how you pronounce it, quite. And they, they soar on the up currents, wind currents, and draw the edges of the cliffs all round. Marvellous. And they go to and fro for ages and ages and ages, just... floating on the air currents that come up from the cliffs, yes. Yes, one is seen to be very idle out there on the cliffs, but that, you absorb stuff all the time, you see. And then the movement of the sea underneath again. But that's one of my favourite pictures, actually.

Yes. And one of your largest, too, isn't it?

Yes. It's a bit big for me, yes.

And ... you know the famous, it's often quoted, the letter you wrote to Sven Berlin, they've quoted a bit from it here, 1948. "The morning air, and the sea is very

light", that's a wonderful passage, isn't it?

Well, I just went out behind my house, on to the cliffs, and sat down and wrote this letter. It wasn't, it wasn't in any way meant to be reproduced or anything else, and just wrote it to him to tell him what I was feeling. You know, it was the end of the War, and I was hoping to do some painting, and that's how I felt. And he picked it up and reproduced it, and it's gone all over the place.

"And how can you paint the warmth of the sun?" As well, that was from it, wasn't it?

That's right. And what Sven liked was the journey of the beetle across a rock. And he says that in one of his little bits of writing, what I say there, "stays with me always", he said, which is rather marvellous, you know.

So, in a way, you were sort of converted to ... emotional ... sort of... you were ... your work showed that emotion, really, that intensity, didn't it? When you were, when you came back to Cornwall... I mean, when you were on the Scilly Isles, rather, it was slightly more removed, some of it like the constructions and the very abstract things, are more impersonal. But this and the more other organicky work that you did in the late forties and early fifties, they're more emotionally charged, somehow, I think.

Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are. Yes, maybe. Well, I mean, it was very exciting the end of the War, wasn't it? I mean, sort of tremendous release, actually. Yes. Oh yes. Because I had this little, little, my mother got me that little studio in the garden along here, first of all, and I used to ... I had no electricity, no nothing in there. I had one of these pump up lamps, you know, and I used to paint at night with that damned thing! I often worked more at night than the daytime, actually, because I liked to go out in the day. Yes.

And did you find that people knew you were a doctor, so they'd come and sort of ask for advice? Did that ever happen?

Oh no. No, no. No, no.

And then, what about all the, the forming of the Crypt Group, and the Penwith Society?

Well, Sven was a friend, you see. He, he was in hospital in, in Penzance, and then somehow he came over to Scilly, and stayed with me over there, and we got very friendly, you know. So there was him, and then I got friendly with Peter when he came back from the War. And that was about all, wasn't it? Peter and Sven and Willie, and Guido Morris, who did the printing. Yes. And we formed the Crypt, to start with, and got this room under the old church, under the old ... the sort of... the Professionals Gallery, isn't it. They had the top place, and we had this little place underneath, and we painted it all out and that, and had this Crypt show, and looked after it ourselves, you know. And, of course, a lot of the people thought it was absolute rubbish! [Laughs] Which is awful, really. Very wearing sitting in front of your paintings, and hearing all these remarks. Oh dear! Anyway, we did it. And we had three of those, I think. The first one was the best, really, in a way, because it was the sort of pioneering one. And out of that, I suppose we started the Penwith Society.

And that...

That was Ben and Barbara were the mainstays of that, and Peter and co, and Peter wouldn't... he fell out with them all because they ...

The AB ruling.

Yeh, all this AB ruling and stuff, yes.

And did you get involved in all that, or did you keep your head down?

No, not really. Not, not really. I didn't care for that sort of thing. But Peter was, you know, a very argumentative sort of chap.

And he thought that it was weighted in favour too heavily of the abstract artists, did he?

I suppose he did, yes. His work was never, always had some connection with the earth or the sea or the sky or something, I think. Very rarely was there an absolutely abstract thing. Well, actually, there was a little Peter in there, you may have seen it. No, it was a very abstract one, actually. I think we did that, I swapped a drawing for it or something.

Where was it? Was it up high?

No, it was on the floor at the end there.

And then you, you began to exhibit, you exhibited in New York, didn't you, at the Durlacher Gallery?

That's right. Well, it was a friend of Ben's. I think he was in the British Navy during the War, and somehow, Ben did a bit of work for one or two ships or something, didn't he, he painted ...

Oh, a mural or something.

Something like that, yes.

Yes, yes.

And George Dix was, who was the, you know, gallery owner, or, or ... and he quite liked my work, and thanks with Ben's help, and he used to take some of my pictures over to New York. He came and stayed with me once over here, for a few days. And he had ... you know, kept me going for a little while, a few of them over there. And then I got some of them back again, which he couldn't sell, and I was quite pleased to have them back. Yes. I had two or three shows over there. I don't think they were mono shows, I think they were probably mixed shows, you know. Mmm. Well, that was George Dix.

And who was he connected with? Was he ...

Durlachers.

Oh, he was the man from Durlachers.

Yes.

Oh, I see. And also, you ... there was the painting that you won the art critics' prize, but that was a bit later on though, that was towards the end of the fifties.

Yes.

1958, the art critics prize. That was owned by Hodin, J.P. Hodin.

Paul Holdin. Yes, well, Paul lived here, you see.

Did he?

Just above ... behind the chapel up here. They lived up there, Paul and his Cornish wife. I got very friendly with them. Yes, Paul and Pam Hodin.

And that painting, that particular painting that you won the prize for, was called "Vista", 1955.

Yeh, that was his.

'55.

Yes. I think he's still got that. I'm not sure.

Is he alive?

Well, last time I knew about him, yes. He wasn't very well, I must say. He's

getting very old, and ... well, so am I, so I don't know.

And then there was also, there was an exhibition called "Prints for Under a Pound".

Oh yes.

Do you remember that?

Vaguely.

Did you take part in that one?

Yes, I did.

What sort of prints did you do?

I think they were ... linocuts or woodcuts, I think. I think, mainly.

And did you do anything mono?

No, I've never done that. Never done mono, I didn't, couldn't work that.

And the, another thing I think you did, the place setting mats that Porthia Prints ...

Oh yes. Yes.

You did that, did you?

Denis was dealing with all that. He was printing all those for this lady, yes. Mmm. Yes. I've got them somewhere, I don't know where they are.

What, did you do one image?

One image. And he did about six mats from them.Yes.

And there was one, I think Hilton, I remember seeing that one.

Yes. Yes. Peter did one, Roger Hilton did one, I think, and one or two other people, yes. Mmm.

And then, I'm skipping a bit now, hut you joined Waddingtons didn't you? You had two shows there.

1960 and 1964, yes.

Oh, not '62?

No, '64.

Right.

Yes. Yes.

And the first one was a success, and the second one was less of a success?

That's right, yes.

The second one was more abstract. Your work was in that.

Yes, that's right.

And then you were included in some of the, the bigger mixed shows, like "Recent British Paintings", were you, at the Tate? Were you in that Decade Exhibition? Painting of the Decade?

Oh, I don't know. I wasn't in a lot of these things, you know, the ...

There was one called "Decade 40", Whitechapel, Arts Council.

I don't know when that was, I don't seem to remember that.

Well, there was one called "Recent British Painting" at the Tate, '67, that you were in.

Was I? I don't really remember, to tell you the truth.

And then there was a group show at the, at Gimpels, "British Abstract Art", 1951.

Was there?

Yes.

Was I in that?

Apparently, yes.

Oh!

And then the British Council toured something called "Ten English Painters", that's '53- '54.

Did they go to Canada in that, do you know?

No. There was another one called "Six Painters from Cornwall".

Oh, that's the one. I was in that.

Yes, Montreal City Art Gallery.

And then we had something in Plymouth, too. Plymouth Art Gallery. Yes. That was a good, that was, that was ... we mentioned it next door, that was

the one ... was that the one you shared with Denis Mitchell, and Alex MacKenzie? Or was that another one you're talking about? Well, it was a ... I don't know whose that was. No, the Plymouth one was several different people, wasn't it? The one that I'm thinking of, there was a small buff catalogue, and you had a lot of work in that one. Did I?

Yes.

Oh dear!

There are some ... they didn't look like that, this is a photocopy of it.

Which is this?

That's the one that took place in 1975.

Not all these, they're not mine. Are they?

Yes.

All those?

Mmm.

Oh dear, I didn't know about that! I can't remember that.

There were about 20 in there.

Good gracious! Where was this?

Plymouth City Art Gallery.

Oh yes! Yes, there were, I suppose, several, yes. Mmm, yes, that's right. Yes, quite good. It was a nice gallery. Rather nice there. A very nice chap, actually, who ran it.

What was his name? Was he ...

I don't remember what his name was.

Cummings or something.

Cummings, that's right.

Alex Cummings.

Alec Cumming, that's right. Then, of course, I had ... Alex MacKenzie lived above here, and he was a great friend, of course. And ... I'm trying to think of who else. I don't know. John Tunnard I knew very well down here.

He was an early settler, wasn't he, down here. He came down here quite early, too.

Yes, well, he was on the Lizard during the War, a Coastguard, I think. Mmm. John Tunnard, and he stayed on down here, lived down here and died down here. Yes.

And...

Of course, Bryan Wynter, of course, I knew very well, and Pat Heron, I got to know very well. He's still a great friend.

And he wrote about you in that "Changing Form of Art".

Oh yes, that's right, yes. Do you know Pat?

No, I don't, actually.

Aren't you going to do him?

I haven't met him. I think he's on the, I think he's on the list. I don't know. They do a few people at a time, you see.

Yes. Well, Pat's marvellous, because he can talk about anything. He's great, really.

I think they, they, you know, they can only do a few people at a time, so they've started on people who aren't so well-recorded.

Oh yes. Yes.

And because he's written a lot...

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And then did you find ... so you were, you were friendly with Gabo, and then he left. Did you remain friendly with Nicholson and Hepworth, when they were down here?

Oh yes.

Yes. You saw them?

Mmm, yes. But I never went to Switzerland.

No.

Denis did, you see, Denis went to stay with them in Switzerland, but I never did. Yes.

And then actually, you did help Hepworth, didn't you, as her assistant?

Oh yes. Oh yes. I think... Peter was the first assistant, and I was the second. And then Denis was about the third or fourth, and he really became her right-hand man, yes.

And did you overlap with ... because Terry Frost was, too, wasn't he?

Oh, Terry did, yes. And, well, various people worked there in the end, yes.

So when did you? Because I've got confusing dates about when you helped her, helped her out.

I can't tell you.

Did you help on the ... Festival of Britain pieces she did?

Yes, I did. Yes.

So that would have been circa 1950.

I suppose that was it, yes. Mmm.

And, because there was ... I think a bit earlier than that, you didn't help her at all, it was just on those pieces?

Well, I had, I helped her, I remember, when she was up at Carbis Bay, before she came into St. Ives, yes. Mmm.

And is that, that's where she was when she was doing the work for the Festival of Britain, she'd just bought... had she, was that, were you working in her studio in St. Ives?

Worked down there, yes, too. Yes, but I worked first of all up at Carbis Bay.

That was Chy-an-Kerris.

I used to go and see them at Chy-an-Kerris, yes. Mmm.

And what was she like to work for?

Oh, very exacting, you know. I'd never done any before, and I worked on a thing called the "Cosdon Head", have you heard of that one? It was a horrible bit of stuff like flint, and I cut my face and hands to pieces, and broke the windmill above me, with these pieces of flying flint.

And were you working with a hammer?

Oh yes. Yes, and also with a ... she didn't like using machines, but I used a rotary grinder, which I don't think she'd ever used before. Yes. Well, that must have been before we had the stuff down at, in, in St. Ives.

And how did she, how did she tell you what to do? How did you know how to carve?

Well, she'd...

She'd mark.

Mark it with chalk, yes. "Take that off. "Cut that piece off... out", you see, sort of thing. Yes, I used to go and stay there for a week at a time, lived with them, stayed in the house for a week, and then work day and night.

And was it she who invited you to help her? Or was it...

Oh yes, I think so. I think so, you know, I wouldn't have asked her if I could help her, no. She asked me if I'd like to come and ... yes. That's right, yes. I remember now, I used to stay a week at a time up there. Not when she went down to

Penzance, not when she went down to St. Ives, but when she was up at Chy-an- Kerris, yes. I used to spend Christmas Day with them very often, you know.

Did you, yes.

I don't know about very often, but once or twice, two or three times, you know, with all the family. Mmm, so I was very friendly with them, you know. So I had five, at least five of Ben's, at one time, and two of Barbara's drawings. Yes. I've got one left, one Barbara drawing.

What, a drawing, not one of the hospital kind of ones.

No, no. One of the abstract ones, you know, drawings for sculptures, sort of thing, yes.

And so when you were working with her, or for her, down at Chy-an-Kerris, Carbis Bay, were you ... was Denis Mitchell there then as well, or not?

I don't think he was, as far as I remember, at the start, no.

No.

No. I seem to remember, I seemed to be working on my own out there.

I've got some notes saying that from 1938 ... part-time ... I don't know what I mean. I don't know what I mean, so I'll skip that bit! And so what, so he then, then Ben disappeared off after ... he went to Switzerland, and you didn't continue ... you didn't see him. Did you ever see him again, or not? He went in 1958 to Switzerland, didn't he?

Did he come back? I don't...

He came back later on, but...

Well, I must have met him when he came back, but I can't really remember it clearly. I know the lady he ... what was her name?

Felicitas Vogler.

Felicitas, she called on me, to find out how to get to St. Ives, and I took her down to the bus, which is into Penzance, you know, and told her where to go. And this is when she ...

This is when she appeared on the scene, you mean?

Yes, yes. I saw her first of everybody, I think!

Oh!

I don't know why she came on to me, but she did. Yes.

And did you know David Lewis?

Oh yes. Yes. I knew David very well, yes. Yes. Yes, when she married Willie, mmm, because I went and helped them decorate their house, and we were putting white on the top room somewhere, and this awful, sort of like a ... cow shed, but it was like an aircraft carrier, a ship with an overhanging piece, and I didn't realise that, and I had this bucket on that edge, and the whole thing tipped over, and went down three floors! This awful white went down through the floors, right down to the bottom of the house! And they were so marvellous about it, because they were paying me to help them, you see! And, oh, they just treated it as a great joke. They were very good. That was an extraordinary experience!

And have you kept in touch with him at all? I mean, you're obviously still in touch with Wilhemina Barns Graham.

Yes, well, when he comes over he usually calls on me. I think I missed him this last time, because ... yes. Yes. Willie, of course, I've great affection for Willie, I

think she's a jolly good artist anyway. Yes. She's ever so good. She's got a little one of mine.

Yes, I saw it hanging in her studio.

Yes, I saw it the other day in one of these, I found it in the "Abstraction Creation" I was showing to somebody, or the "Realitees Nouvelles", you know. There were two of these books, and I've got four of those, and that's in one of them. Mmm, yes.

And then Lanyon was another good friend of yours.

Yes. Yes.

But it was sad that he, both he and Bryan Wynter, sort of, well, died before their time.

Absolutely. Yes. It was really terrible. Yes, terrible. Well, Bryan's was a heart attack, and Peter was ...

Gliding.

... a bit of bad flying, as far as I can make out. He was always ... he used like to do a rather spectacular turn in to land, and his instructor, so I was told, the instructor told him not to do that, and he did it once too often, and he caught the tip of his wing, and it broke up, and he wasn't killed outright, but I think he had, must have had a huge clot afterwards, you know, this thing you get after injury, and ... yes. Oh, it was devastating. Yes. But he was a great chap, Peter. Yes. Yes, it's extraordinary, the number of people I've met really.

Mmm. There's such a link with so many different people, in your case.

Yes, yes.

I mean, you've sort of brushed with Gill, and you live in Stanhope Forbes studio, but, I mean, you've never met him.

Yes. Yes. I met Stanhope Forbes.

Oh yes, you did meet him. Sorry.

Yes, oh yes. I met Stanhope, yes. Then when Pat was up in London a lot, I used to go and stay with him, you see, and he used to take me and meet a lot of people. Yes, he was very good like that.

And who do you remember meeting? Unusual people?

Well, I remember meeting Hilton when he was quite young and very quiet. Yes. I remember meeting, who was the sculptor? A great friend of his, Irishman.

Armitage, no?

No. ... his house, at this sculptor's house, he was a lovely chap, and ... oh, the painter who did the pots and pans.

William Scott?

William, yes. I met William Scott, and people like that.

And Pasmore?

I met Victor Pasmore. He took me to Victor Pasmore's house, yes. Yes. He was very good. Yes.

And then also, people used to come down here, didn't they, to St. Ives.

Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.

So there were some quite interesting people that you met like that, weren't there?

Oh yes, yes. It's amazing how many people I've met, really. The one I've never met was Henry Moore, actually.

Oh yes. Yes, he didn't really sort of...

He didn't come down here, no, but I mean, no, you'd have to go up there, and go out to his country place, I suppose. But I think his work is absolutely fabulous. Marvellous. They were talking about him the other day, he's got a show on somewhere, hasn't he?

He usually does have, somewhere!

Yes. Because Alan looks after his thing, doesn't he?

Well, he's now stopped.

Oh, he's finished with that, has he?

Yes. The Henry Moore Foundation, he's retired now. I think someone else has taken it on.

We had a little, a little party for Ben's, would have been Ben's 100th birthday, the other day, in St. Ives.

Oh, did you?

And Irene Brumwell came, and she was older than me, she was 92, but I was the oldest of all the rest, I think, and the one who'd known Ben the longest, you know, because I'd met him in '28, you see. So it went on a hell of a time, long before any, any of the others met him.

And so where was that party held? At the Tate, or not?

At the Pig and Fish, or something, it's called, in St. Ives, yes.

And Margaret Gardiner, she's around still. Was she there?

She wasn't at that, no. No, Margaret Gardiner was another person I met, yes, because she's got one or two of my pictures up.

She's about a year ...

She's a great friend of Barbara's, of course. And there was Priaulx Rainier who wasn't a painter, but she was a musician. I knew her very well. She's a great friend of mine. Well, I say "great friend", I mean, she's ... we were great friends, you know. Yes.

And you've always, you were interested in music, you were saying.

Well, yes, yes, I got interested in music very much.

And who are your favourite composers?

Oh God! [Laughs] So many are my favourite, I don't know where to start! I suppose it started off when I did a locum, as you know, I hated doing locums, hut a friend who had a practice outside Norwich, used to come to our... he was unmarried then, and he used to come into our little do's at the hospital, you know, join us there, because he used to practice outside. Well, I did a locum for his partner once, out there, but he was very keen on music, he was a very good pianist, and I suppose he must have introduced me to music quite a bit, mmm, because, in the end, he became President of the Norwich Musical Society, or something. Yen, he died a year or two ago now. Yes.

And did you know, did you ever meet Bernard Meadows, the sculptor?

No, I didn't meet him, no.

Because he was Norwich, came from Norwich.

Did he? No, I didn't meet him.

He was at the Norwich School of Art, before he was Moore's assistant.

No, I... I got a rather special gramophone, I remember, when I was in the hospital, it was the MG's thing, and they were quite famous at one time, and I got interested ... well, the first bit of music I heard which was anything other than popular stuff, was Schumann's Piano Quintet, in a little black box of a portable radio, over here, when a friend of mine was drawing with Stanhope, you see, and, you know, a friend, I became friendly with him, and he introduced me to ...

Was that...

Pardon?

Sorry, that was when you came in the twenties, to be a pupil at...

'28, yes. End of Part 4 - F4045 Side B

Part 5 [Tape 3 Side A]

John Wells talking to Tamsyn Woollcombe, at his studio in Newlyn, on 9th June, 1994.

Well, you very kindly found these two wonderful photographs. First of all, this one. You showed me this picture, and you think it's ...

Yes, I think it's probably my father and mother, not so long after I was born, down in the old farm in Cornwall. That's a tamarisk hedge there, you see, all along the drive.

Oh right, is that when they sort of, is it sort of laid, that hedge?

The hedge is laid, and then you see the tamarisk bushes, you see. I can remember that was still like that 20, 30 or 40 years later, you see. Yes.

And that was, as you were saying the other day, quite near Padstow, in between Padstow and Newquay, in that cove.

About five miles from Padstow, yes.

Could you just tell me the name of it again? St. Merryn. St. Merryn. And the farm is called "Camillus", even on the maps, that's Camillus.

And did it pass out of your family then?

Yes, unfortunately, it did, yes.

When was that?

When my grandmother died, I think, yes. Yes. But I've got another, marvellous picture here. I'd better talk about that one, I think. This one is my father when he was ill, and went down to Sussex with my mother.

He's in bed, isn't he? Sitting in bed there.

But Fleming had this picture in his own private laboratory, after my father died.

That's quite something, isn't it?.

In a biography of him, from a French ... Andre Maurois, or somebody like that, I think it was, yes. But my cousin has given me this picture, which I think is absolutely marvellous. This is the old farm.

Oh, isn't that nice.

There are 11 of the children round there, and father, and grandfather and grandmother. That's Granny on the other side, with that fantastic hat on her head, and I recognise the ...

What, that, that one?

1899, yes. And that's the grandfather there, that stocky figure there. Somewhere there is my father.

Yes, he's marvellous, isn't he! Oh, so your mother was one of...

My mother thinks she's the middle of the three on the left there.

Oh, I see, that one.

Because the one to the left, I think is her very favourite sister, who was... got peritonitis and died. And the one on the right was the one who was rather nasty and cruel, and used to pinch them. She looks a bit tough, doesn't she, that one.

Yes, she does, yes. She's standing in a certain way. So how many children were there altogether? Eleven?

Eleven there, but there were 20 children altogether. One or two died in infancy, you see, with ... what did they have? Diphtheria or something, you know.

And this house is sort of flint, or something. Is that flint?

No, it was built of slates, I think.

Slate roof.

But it was a terraced house. My father, grandfather pulled it down because it was full of rats, and he rebuilt that, probably on the same sort of thing, yes.

And it's got a slate roof, and it's ...

Slate, yes.

... overhung with climbing ...

Ivy and stuff.

... ivy or whatever.

Yes.

It's a nice house, isn't it? And that sort of gothicky kind of porch, with gothicky ...

Yes, lovely sort of Victorian porch, yes.

And sash windows.

Mmm. Yes, it was exactly as I remember it. This was 1899, that one, that picture. Marvellous, isn't it?

Yes, it is. Lovely house.

Oh, it is. Was.

And so you used to go down there when your grandmother was still alive, for holidays and things?

Yes. Yes. That's that. Rather marvellous.

And the other thing, this is darting about a bit, this pamphlet for the Euro Elections, the voting date is today, and you've just shown me this ... sort of poster for the local MEP, the Conservative MEP, haven't you?

Yes. Well, that's [inaud] there, and the new Tate Gallery in St. Ives, and there's a little picture of [inaud] in the Tate Gallery, with Denis's sculpture, and my picture behind him. You can see him looking at them both, or presumably being there, anyway.

Exactly. That's very nice.

Yes.

And as you say ...

He does the whole of Cornwall and West Plymouth, yes.

And what are all those books you've got over there? They're nothing to do with what you've dug out?

No. No.

Actually, I made a note of the paintings that are currently on display at the Tate in St. Ives, by you. And you've got... there's the "Painting 1957", which is, it's one, a sort of more textural one, I think we talked about it yesterday.

Yes, that's a little one, small one.

Smallish.

Yes.

And then there's the "Painting 1956", which is that one, which is reproduced in that brochure for the Conservatives, which has been given by Ken Powell, although it says "Bequeathed" by him, but he is alive, so ... unless he's suddenly died. He was alive when I last knew. And then the one you went into, you talked about it yesterday, the "Aspiring Forms".

"Aspiring Forms", yes.

1950. And then there's the other one.

Which is the "Sea Bird".

"Sea Bird Forms" of 1951.

Yes.

And that was the one that Wilhemina Barns Graham thought was quite interesting, seeing that hanging, hanging beside the Lanyon, and her glacier painting, how there was something similar in all three.

Yes, maybe. Maybe.

A C-shape, letter C-shape.

Yes.

But can you remember the "Sea Bird Forms" well enough to talk about it? Because I was thinking there was a card of it, but there isn't, actually.

There isn't a card of it?

No. No, no.

Not really, but I think it's ... a parabolic curve in there, yes. Yes, I think so, and it just happened to get like a bird! Yes. You've got all those?

Yes, I have. I was having a nice look at them.

No, I'm only able to go back the last year or two, I couldn't afford it before, you see. And those are all I could get hold of, that was all I had left.

Well, actually, are these ...

Lot of early ones, I haven't had pictures of.

Are these, we're talking about a set of colour post-cards you've had made. Are these all yours, as it were?

Not now. Not now.

I haven't sort of looked at them all, no. I mean, it doesn't say where they ...

No.

But some of them are ...

Some of them are mine, yes.

Some of them that we looked at yesterday.

Yes.

And I'll talk about... have you got a particular favourite among these ones that you wanted to talk about? I thought I'd put the later ones, actually, on the top, because I thought we could talk about them separately, because we've covered, generally, we've covered the range of your work, I mean, not in enormous detail, but we did. It was marvellous looking at all your work yesterday, I mean the day before yesterday. It was really great... the real thing.

That's one of my favourites, of course.

And that's the one you painted over, you realised you painted it over a painting that was discarded.

I always did that, yes.

Yes, yes.

And I like that one very much, but that's at Irene Brumwell's ... No, that one. This one?

No.

Sorry.

That one, that one is at Irene Brumwell's, in her marvellous, she's got a very modern strange kitchen, which is a sitting room as well, and she's got that in there.

That's called "Tin Country".

"Tin Country", yes.

1959.

Yes.

That's got a nice texture.

Well, yes, it's a very painty sort of picture.

Mmm. It looks absolutely super. And her house ...

It's biggish, well, I mean big for me, it's sort of 30" at least, I think, by 20", or something like that, it could be 36", I'm not sure. It could be 36" x 20".

Oh, you mean the smaller dimension first, because it's a long shape, it's a long thin one.

Yes.

Horizontal one.

Yes, horizontal, yes, yes.

And this one, I see the date's '59, a sort of culmination of that kind of picture that you were doing, because you didn't... am I right in thinking you didn't really do many more of the kind of more landscapey ones, much after that date? Or am I wrong? Well, the first show in Waddingtons was 1960, wasn't it?

Oh, so you did. Yes, that had those in

They were more or less landscape, some of them were more landscapey, yes. Yes. There's another one I like rather. That one is an early picture, but I did a new one on it, for this man in ... he was very keen on the picture, and I said, "I can't let you have it, it's such an awful condition. I'll do you another one. It won't be exactly the same, but it'll be very much like it". And that was a remaking of that old picture, sort of done ... I don't know, is there a date on the rear?

Yes, there is. It's "Figure in Space", 1945, Version 1985. |

That's right.

Collection John Simons.

That's right, yes.

Yes, I was going to ask you, do you have quite a lot of patrons, sort of people who have bought your work? Collected your work, really.

There are one or two, I think, yes, mmm.

In this country mainly?

Oh yes, yes, yes.

Because when you had your Durlacher shows in America, presumably ...

Well, some of them have come back here again, later.

Oh, that's a nice one.

Yes, I like "Listening" very much.

Yes, so do I.

Yes. Well, somebody I know who used to come down here, and he would take classes in ... well, some sort of industrial psychology, really, at Holmans, which is a very big firm, or was a big firm, in Camborne, making mining machinery and that sort of thing, you see. And his friend who used to come down and lecture to them about this industrial psychology, has gone mad on this, and wanted to buy it, I don't know how many times, and he's taken it all over the world, the reproduction of it, and talks to his students about it.

And what does he say about it, I wonder?

I don't know. I've no idea! I don't understand what he's doing, really.

And this is called "Listening", 1947-48. |

That's right, yes.

And actually, it seems to be available for sale, in your, in your, in the Gilbert...

Not available for sale.

Oh, it's not. It's just there, is it?

It's just there, yes. Yes.

So did you use your beam compass or anything?

Not for that.

Not for that?

Oh no.

No.

No, well, it might have been ... no, I doubt it. There are some curves there. That's one I'm very keen on.

Oh yes. "Variations", 1944. And is this one, are those lines, as we're looking at these in reproduction, are these lines, are they string, or are they painted on?

No, they're lines.

They're painted on.

Yes

Yes. That's ... I can't really describe it properly. Divided ... the painting is divided into four unequal sections, with...

With big oval affairs.

Sort of oval, irregular ovals.

Yes.

With radiating lines.

Yes, that's right. They remind me vaguely, of a dandelion.

Oh yes.

The seeds, you know. Sort of feeling at the back of them that... but they're really variations on that sort of theme, you see, with the oval and the ... funny little things in it.

Because this oval... oh yes, '47-48, yes.

What date is that?

This one, the "Variations", 1944.

'44. Oh, while I was still in Scilly, yes.

Yes. So that relates to those, some of the constructions and things you were doing then as well.

Yes.

And quite unusual colours again. They're sort of... what do you call that colour?

Which colour?

Sort of mushroomy browny colour! I don't know what you ...

I don't call it, I just make it!

But... but this one, I'm talking about "Listening" again, '47-'48, that's again got irregular oval kind of shapes, hasn't it.

Yes. On that, you see, that's a parabaloid curve.

This one?

That one, yes.

I see.

And they're sort of more or less ... yes. Yes.

And so do you, do you sometimes, do you quite often work on something you did earlier, and you rediscover it, and then you add, add to it?

Occasionally I do, occasionally I do, yes. Yes. Now, that's something quite different. That's quite an early one, I think. I can't see it. '45. '44.

That really is based ... there is a figure in there, isn't there?

A surrealist sort of, well, semi-surrealist picture. Now, that has gone to a very nice man, he is ... Sir Edward Carew Pole.

Oh, he's to do with the Tate, St. Ives.

Mmm, yes.

Yes. And to do with, he's on the Cornwall County Council and that sort of thing. He's got a big house near Plymouth, one of the famous houses, you know, and he liked my work, and he had two or three to look at, and he chose that one.

And it's called "Blue Figure by the Shore", 1944.

That's right, yes. Quite nice.

Mmm, it's very nice.

Yes. A different sort of painting altogether, but there we are.

And you know you were saying ... this might be completely wrong. Actually, no, it would be wrong, it's not even appropriate for me to say it. It's all right, it doesn't matter. Forget about it.

Never mind! Oh, that one, I never mentioned that I was mad on Klee, well, I still am.

Klee?

Yes, Paul Klee, yes. Yes, well, that's the sort of... got quite a bit of Klee in it, I think. I've still got that, and I love that one.

That is nice.

I won't even let anybody have it.

That's lovely. That's called "Painting" 1946. So you were still on, no, you'd arrived here by that stage.

Yes.

I think I bought a Paul Klee book from the Tate, St. Ives, the other day. Oh, did you.

Yes. Because you have been called, I've got this article, it came from the Studio in 1959, it seems to be marked 1959, about, it's by J.P. Hodin, and it's about the 1958 Art Critics Prize. And we talked about the prize you won, last time.

Yes, he's the one who ...

Lived up the road.

... lived up here, yes. Paul Hodin, yes.

Yes. He mentions "the lyrical and magic brought into play made a big impression on him [you] ... Yes.

... and brought the innermost character of his work to the fore". And he says, actually, in the same article, he says that you're ... "Wells is not concerned only with the constructive side of the art of painting, but fundamentally with the rendering of poetic experiences".

[Laughs] Well!

What do you think about that?

Well, somebody else has got to find out, I can't! But anyway, that was one. I can show you that painting, in a minute.

Yes, I'd like to see it.

I hope I've still got that. I won't sell that.

Oh yes. Actually, that is very similar. This one we're looking at now, "Sea Bird" 1946, is very similar to the one that I saw at Michael Parkin's the other day, which is ... well, it's a slightly more simplified version, but the colours are the same, and it's 194, well, I think it's 1945.

Oh yes, the same ... I see what you mean, yes.

But it does sort of ring a bell somehow. But perhaps ... and I like this craquelure, it's probably by mistake, is it, that?

Well...

Or on purpose?

Well, it's ... what it was, I put, what do you call it? Yes, engrusso onto the board, and it cracked, you know, if you put it on thick it'll crack, and it gives a marvellous texture to it.

Oh, so it was on purpose.

Most interesting. Yes.

What is gesso grosso, as opposed to ...

Gesso grosso is ... plaster of Paris into glue, and put on thick. You see, just as sottile is gesso grosso, which is slate, and then kept stirring for days and days on end, so it doesn't coagulate into a lump, and then it's finally, the water's poured off, and it's mixed with fine glue and made very thin, that's for finishing over with gesso grosso. That's how they did it in the old days. Yes.

And how did you, did you make that up yourself? For yourself, this gesso grosso?

Oh yes. It's very simple to do.

Yes.

And did you make up, I mean, the colours, did you have natural pigments?

Oh no, this is one I had, probably had just ordinary ... I've got some natural pigments, actually. I had a very dark cadmium, which I got from, it's near Gower Street, you know where Gower Street is.

Yes.

And there was a little shop in the road that went up to it, I think it was Hampstead Road or something, I think it was called, it went up from the cross roads at the top of Tottenham Court Road, that went up to Camden Town, and there was an art shop a few hundred yards up there, half a mile or quarter of a a mile up there, and I used to go mad when I went in there! I went in there, and I got hold of this ... down in the basement they had this tin of very dark red cadmium, and I gave Gabo some of that, because he wanted the dark red pigment, and…I've never discovered whether he used it or not, but... it's quite extraordinary, yes. I was very friendly with Gabo. Well, the little I saw of him, it was marvellous, actually.

And you were saying last time, you went for walks with him.

Yes. Yes.

And did you used to talk about art, as it were? Ideas ... what did you talk about?

Yes, we talked about, yes, we used to talk about things. I know he said that... you know, he was pointing to the leaves and things all around him, and he said, you know, "They are all kinds of imperfect..." or something, something's had a bite at them when they were young, and something has got the wind on them, and that, and they never achieve the perfect form they were striving for all the time. Which is a marvellous idea, you know, when you think about it. I remember him saying that to me. Yes. Yes.

And can you remember other things he said to you?

Well, I can't really! It's just this general feeling about things. I think I once saw the ballet, "Le Pas d'Acier", was it? "Le Pas d'Acier"?

I don't know what that is, sorry!

"The Age of Steel". I think he and Pevsner did it together, the ...

Oh, right, the ballet thing.

Not the ballet, but they did the ...

Set design? No?

... I think they did the stage design, yes.

Oh right, because I think...Oh, that's the harmonograph, isn't it?

Yes. This is currently on display in London, at the Tate, "Naum Gabo, 'The Creative Process'", and I think there's some ... [bang in background. "What's that?" - "It's a bird, I expect".] I'm just looking, I think there was something for, there was something for "La Chatte"? Oh, it was "Le Chat", it was the cat ballet, then. It was either 'Le Pas d'Acier', or the cat.

Yes, there was "The Cat" 1926.

Well, it was the cat one, then, that I saw. Yes.

Yes, because they were rather good, those. Yes, they've got these on display, and some costume sketches and things.

Yes.

And stage set designs.

No, that is something ... Harmonograph, I've seen that, but it looked like it at first.

This is "Sketch for Spheric Theme", circa 1937, what we're talking about.

Yes.

And with, with Lanyon, when you went, you went also on sort of walks with him, didn't you?

Peter, yes, yes, yes.

And sometimes he sketched, but you didn't?

I should think so, yes, because I don't like drawing in front of anybody. But mostly it was just looking at everything.

Because he had a great feeling for the landscape, too, didn't he.

Oh yes, he did.

More than all the others, really, didn't he?

I think so, yes.

Because you have too, obviously, haven't you?

Well, I think so. Yes, I used to spend a lot of time out on the cliffs, yes. But Barbara always said she did, but I don't really think she did a lot. You know, she ... once or twice, but she had a hell of a lot to say about it, but not really, well, she couldn't waste her time like I did, you know!

So what was your routine in the, in those early days, then, when you were here, when

Well, no routine, but if anything, I used to go out a lot during the day and then work at night. I worked quite a lot at night.

And when you went out in the day, you, did you see ... you saw quite a lot of other people? Or not necessarily?

No, I used to go on my own, go to the cliffs, you know, yes.

And did you ever sail from here, or not?

Once. Once, this was ... somebody asked me to help take a boat to Ireland, as one of the crew. And this boat was in the Helford River and ... yes, we sailed from Newlyn to a place called Kinsale.

Oh! I know.

Do you know Kinsale? Well I never! [Laughs] And there was this chap, it was a farmer who bought this boat, which was a Brixham trawler, quite a big boat, heavy gear and all that sort of thing, and that was ... his wife was called Juanita, who eventually married Sven.

Oh!

And there was a chap who was the most seaworthy sort of chap of the lot, he was ... an Irishman, who came with us on the way out, but didn't come back with us, and told us how to read a couple of some ... how to take a shot with a ... whatyoucallit, you know, theodolite or something! And so we went there, and he went off, disappeared, and we, we entered round the corner from Kinsale, slightly up the river. And it was marvellous, actually, we had, I don't know, a week or two there, two or three weeks there. It was really very good.

Because sometimes ... sorry, go on.

And we had a chap, a young boy who came with us, who was an apprentice boat builder, but he got so sick, that he was absolutely useless on the way back, so I had to do most of it. And all the navigation and that, and the compass was wrong, and I made a wrong connection on the compass, and we got half way across and I realised that, and had to try and correct it! And then on about the third day, we saw these lights up on the horizon, and they were Pendean, which is near St. Just. So we were ... but it was pretty bad navigation, really, but still we got there.

And did you ... Fastnet Rock, did you have to go past them on the way?

We didn't go to Fastnet, no, we didn't go as far as Fastnet, Kinsale isn't as far as that.

Oh right, right. No, it's beyond. That's right. That's right. That's right, because ... oh, it doesn't matter.

Have you been there, then?

Yes, I've been to West Cork for the last couple of summers, I'm going there again in a couple of weeks.

Oh, really. How lovely. West Cork, is this?

Yes.

Well, it's almost, well, it was West Cork, yes, I suppose it was West Cork, it's ...

I go a bit further on.

Down in the West it's better again, isn't it. It's getting more wild, isn't it.

Yes. It's, there are lots of coves, actually, rather similar to round here, a place near, further on, there's Baltimore, which is a port, and then there's ... a place called, what's it called? The place we don't know. Near a place called Skibreen, which is quite

Skibreen, yes, I've heard of all those places, yes.

And this lovely village where we go, and I've forgotten it's name! Anyway, it's on an estuary, and you can go out in boats and do mackerel fishing and things.

Well, was the Newlyn boat - people on board...... were they? How terrific. I've always wanted to go to Kerry and all that, but I never have.

Well, with your sister out...

She's in East Ireland, County Wexford, New Ross, a place called New Ross, actually, it's about 35 miles from Wexford town, you know. I don't know if you go across that...

No, I only go to that, that Cork bit. I go to Cork on a ferry and then ...

Oh you go ... do you go from Fishguard?

I can't remember! I can't remember which ...

Do you take your car?

Mmm.

Oh well, you probably go from Fishguard.

Swansea. Swansea.

Oh, you go from Swansea?

Swansea-Cork, it's a long run, but it's ...

Oh yes, yes. No, I've not done that one. I've only done from Fishguard to ... oh, God! [PAUSE] Tony Malley was brought up, I think Clare Island, or born on Clare Island, or something. He's now gone back to live, where another part of his family live, which is fairly near my sister at New Ross, that's ... well, it's halfway hetween there and Kilkenny. Do you know Kilkenny?

I'm really ... yes, I've heard of it, but on a map of Ireland.

He's a tremendous chap, he just works all the time. He used to be in New Ross where my sister is, and he worked in a bank there, and he got TB and had to give it up and all that sort of thing, and started painting, and he just can't stop painting. He married a lovely Canadian girl, she can't stop painting. Between the pair of them, they're doing very well over there, because they really look after artists in Ireland, you know.

Yes.

They really do. So he's really quite famous now.

And where is he based now, then?

Well, it's between New Ross and Kilkenny, I've forgotten the name of the places now. Yes. He had a little, a little tiny place, and he's added to it, and made it quite a big studios, and a place where he can put people up and everything now, I think. Yes. But he's a great character, marvellous chap. Mmm.

And when did he move over there?

Oh, two or three years ago now.

Oh, I see.

Yes. Yes. But he used to live very near Alfred Wallis's old house in ...

Back Road West?

St. Ives. Mmm, Back Road West, that's right, yes. Yes.

I was just... the ... the other thing I was going to say. Last time, you were trying to think of a sculptor whose name escaped you at that time, and we've remembered now. We were talking about...

McWilliam, yes.

That's him. Yes, sorry, I was just going to put that in, because you saw him, you used to see him in London, didn't you?

End of Part 5 - F4046 Side A

Part 6 [Tape 3 Side B]

... I met McWilliam two or three times,I think, because he had this studio house not very far from where Pat lived, I think.

In Holland Park, was it, somewhere?

Somewhere like that, I think. And he had a lovely garden there with some of his sculptures in it, you know. And he was always getting raided, and people pinching everything and so forth. I think it's awful.

I think there's quite a nice photograph of people lying on the grass in his garden, and I think, I think the Scotts are in the picture.

Yes.

William and Mary Scott.

I remember William and Mary, yes, because Pat went around with them once, as well. Yes, they lived in Edith Terrace, I think, in London.

He wasn't very far from Pat, I don't think, was he.

I think, was Patrick Heron in Addison Road, or somewhere?

Yes, somewhere like that, yes. That's it. Addison Avenue, I think it was.

Avenue, yes, that's it. That's it. And Roger Maine, do you remember Roger Maine, he lived round there.

I know the name very well. Wasn't he a photographer?

Yes.

Yes, I remember him, I think. There was another lady up there, who was a very good painter, and I liked very much, that's ...

Sandra Blow? No.

Not Sandra Blow. Prunella Clough.

Oh yes.

Do you know Prunella?

Yes, I don't know her, but I know her work. I think her work's wonderful. And she's done incredibly, she's done wonderful work recently, as well. She had a very good show at Annelly Juda.

Did she really.

Yes. They did extremely well.

Well, I've been there with Pat several times, yes. I like her very much. We're good friends, yes. I've only met her a few times, but I would feel I'm friendly with her, you know. Yes. Yes, dear Prunella. We swapped painting for nothing, sort of little works, works on paper. So she gave me two or three drawings, and I gave her one or two of these circle things. Mmm. Mmm.

Are you in touch with her now? Or not so much?

Oh no, not really. But, you know, she's never, never completely out of my thoughts really, you know!

And do you, do you find nowadays, you're really down here most of the time, or do you get about?

I don't go out at all, no. I don't go anywhere, except when my friends are down, and

And, so ... I was just also wondering, I might just turn the tape off.

Yes.

Sorry, I...

I went to the Art School in Penzance, you see, to do etching. I did life drawing for a time there, and then I did ... we had lessons from Bouverie Hoyton who was the chief of that place.

In Penzance this was?

Yes. Yes. And John Tunnard was also teaching there. I got to know him, you see, and he was living out on the moors then. He was ... out on the Lizard during the War, I think, as a coastguard, and also doing a bit of work, and he was also a very good entomologist as well, actually. And then he lived on the, that ridge of high ground ... lived on that ridge of high ground which runs along past Pat's place.

Up near Zennor?

Yes, west of Zennor, actually. And I went up there once to his place and had supper with him, or something. But I knew him, you know, quite well, really.

And what did you think of his work?

I thought it was very good, you know. It was very competent, very ... well, imaginative sort of work, semi-surrealist, but he was a good chap. He was a very, very good fellow, all round.

Because in the early days, he'd done quite ... there are a few examples I've seen of quite figurative things, of Mousehole, and things like that, and harbours, and French boats at Newlyn, and things like that.

Yes, I don't know those, actually. I'm thinking of the more commemorative things... you know, like the, like Goonhilly and those great dishes and things like that, but done in a sort of surrealist way, or that's how I think of it, mmm. He had a brother who had a gallery in London, didn't he?

Oh, did he?

John, I think so.

Oh, right. What was it called, the gallery?

The Tunnard Gallery, I think. I'm not sure. I think he used to show up there. I think he used to show in the Penwith, I imagine.

Yes.

Yes. But he was living on this high moor, and then they moved down to Lamorna, and had a big garden there, and I think he was heaving something about in the garden, and he had a, must have had a ... burst a blood vessel, got a paralysis, you know, and he was incapacitated, not totally, but very much so, for a man of his energy and ... and I used to meet him occasionally in the pub somewhere in St. Just, or somewhere like that, and it was very sad, because he realised how, you know, how incompetent he was, in a way, because he couldn't do things that he used to. But he was a very good fellah, yes.

You know when you bought this, these ... this studio.

This building, yes.

This building, that Denis Mitchell and you shared, I mean, you owned, but he worked here as well.

Yes.

I just want to check the date with you, because the other day you said you thought it was about 1966, but I think it was actually 1969.

No, '65 I think. You see, I had the two shows, 1960 and '64, and I was hoping then in '64,1 was still, I was beginning to negotiate about it. It helped me to buy this. I think I bought it, or started to buy it in 1965.

Oh, I see. So this, which is an obituary of Denis Mitchell, and it says here, "In 1969, Mitchell moved into a studio with the painter John Wells, in Newlyn", but you had, you'd got it before.

Oh yes.

I see. That's what I wasn't clear about.

Yes. But he came and worked here, sort of mornings or things like that, occasionally, or brought something round. There was a big sculpture he brought over, it's gone now, I'm sorry it's gone now, it's gone over to ... and he brought a few more things over, then started to work here, and eventually moved house from St. Ives to the top of the hill in Newlyn. You know where his house is, don't you?

I don't, actually. Is it near Terry Frost? Is it up there?

Yes. When you turn up the lane to Terry Frost, Denis's is the first house on the left you pass.

Oh, I see. I must have passed it several times, then.

A Victorian house there.

Yes. Because the location of this is fantastic, isn't it? It really is.

Well, it is really.

You must be very pleased with it.

Yes.

Because you look out on to the ... actually, can you see it?

You can't...

If you stand up, you can look out, and you can see the church in Penzance.

Oh yes. Yes.

And then from your actual house where you live, the former teaching studio of Stanhope Forbes, you can look down on to the harbour, can't you?

Oh yes, good views from up there, yes. Quite different, actually, much better. Lovely.

And then you've got your nice garden, with all your eucalyptus trees in it.

Yes. Yes, it's rather marvellous in the middle of Newlyn, because Newlyn is really quite a working place, you know, so we've got this little green oasis here, yes. And it's good for Newlyn, because it is a proper working port, and it's quite an important one for fishing.

Yes. Yes, it's one of the biggest fishing ports in England.

Yes, so that makes it a real working village, I mean, not like St. Ives, which has become a rather tourist... Yes, it's all tourist, not much of anything left there really. But St. Ives is a marvellous place, in spite of all that. What, St. Ives?

Yes. Yes, I must say it's quite ... the Porthrneor side seems to be untouched.

What do you call the Porthmeor side?

Well, the Porthmeor beach, the Porthmeor beach.

That's under the Tate, is it?

Under the Tate, that side, and the Back Road West, and things, that seems to be free of people, tourists.

Yes. Yes.

Relatively, anyway, this time of year.

Yes.

They stay the other side, luckily enough.

Well, horses usually go up and down there, on the harbour front there, don't they?

Yes, with all those knick-knack shops around the place.

Yes. Yes. But, of course, there's quite a few studios in Back Road West, and that there. Well, Pat's got one there, and ...

Yes, has he got one of the Porthmeor ones? Has he got Ben Nicholson's old one?

Yes, he's got Ben Nicholson's old studio there, that's right. Yes.

Does he work in it regularly?

I think so. I think so, mmm. Have you met Pat? Have you been there?

No, I haven't, actually. I've never met him.

You haven't got to see him.

No, not this time, anyway, no. No. But I was going to ask you about the, that book, that he wrote in 1955, when he wrote about you and your work.

"The Changing Forms of Art", wasn't it?

Exactly, "The Changing Forms of Art".

Yes, well, I haven't read it for a very long time, so I won't remember much about it. He talked about, I wrote a bit down, actually. He talked ... "a sense of refinement, not only the image and design, but actual means of painting". He talked about your "passionate intensity".

[Laughs] Oh dear!

"Not (underlined) intense passion!"

Yes.

And "... his passion is a passion for perfection, the precise image, sharpened into it's barest, most economical form".

Well, some are like that, I suppose, aren't they?

Mmm. It's quite ... I think he, he's sort of... do you feel he's got, he's understood your work?

Oh, I think so. Oh yes, I'm sure he has. I mean, those sort of, that sort of thing, those sort of little ones ... these sort of things.

But he's written a lot about it, I won't quote all about it. And he also wrote, he described how you prepared a, how you, how you worked, how you refined a surface. But that was Heron writing about you in 1955, that's way back, but... and we had that

Hodin article and the Studio, at the time of your ... that prize you won. Are there any critics today, or writers, that you feel are unsympathetic? Or that you think are sympathetic towards you?

I never have anything to do with them. No.

No?

No.

You might not have anything to do with them, as far as you're concerned, but are there favourite ones, ones that you read?

I never read them, I never read any critics or anybody.

And do you subscribe to, I know you said that when you were in the Scillies, you took Horizon , and things like that.

I took Horizon , yes.

Do you take, do you subscribe to anything now?

Yes. Modern Painters.

Oh yes.

Yes. When ... the chap who started that, he came down here and gave us a lecture, and I was very impressed with him.

Peter Fuller?

Yes. He seemed a very good bloke. Denis liked him very much too, went up and spoke to him afterwards, you know, after the lecture, but it was a tragedy that he got killed like that....it was terrible.

Yes, it was.

It was terrible. I mean, that... it's rather more figurative than anti-figurative, than abstract, that book, but it's pretty good altogether, you know, it has good articles by Pat and things like that in it, and ... mmm. Very, you know, very broad-minded about everything I think, isn't it?

Yes, I think so.

Yes. I take it and enjoy it, it's only four times a year anyway. Yes. She came down, his widow came down, and the editor, or whoever it was, came down.

Oh, really?

To Denis and I, yes.

Oh. What, did they do an interview with you?

Well, just came and had a look round and talked to us, yes.

Did it get into the ...

No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

Was that, perhaps, when the Tate at St. Ives, was opening? Or was it before then?

Before that, I think, when Denis was still alive, actually, you see. Yes. [PAUSE] Those things I showed you yesterday.

Yes, that's right. And I was talking earlier today, when I saw Wilhemina Barns Graham, about the festival that took place in St. Ives in 1951, and she won a prize for the best painting, hut she said you should have won it. Now, can you remember what you were doing?

I can't remember what I had there, no.

Oh well. I wonder what it was!

No, I don't remember.

And actually, in the same year, in 1951, at Heals, Mansard Gallery, there was an exhibition of works by 15 artists and craftsmen around St. Ives. You were in that one, weren't you.

That's right, yes. I found the catalogue of that the other day.

Oh, did you?

Yes. Yes. Yes. That's right.

And there was another one, 1955 at Heals, Mansard Gallery, and that, that's included ... at the same time were all the screen printed things on linen by Mitchell and Dortman. We mentioned that last time, that you'd done a print of that.

I didn't realise there were two series up there.

Apparently. Apparently. I was going to actually ask you, is colour more important to you than shape? Or shape more important than colour? Sort of forms? Or is it... Well, I think they're both equally important. I wouldn't say one is more important than the other really.

They're both the same. Because we've been looking at quite a lot of your, we looked at quite a lot of your work when I last came here, up to sort of sixtiesish, and, but you've been working until recent years, all the time. I don't know whether you work now, do you?

At the moment, I haven't.

You haven't been recently.

I haven't done much lately.

And we looked at those things that you had, that you'd left in that studio over there, with, with the collage on, and the lump of paint, didn't we?

Oh yes.

They were quite, they were quite recent.

Well, fairly recent, yes. Well, I mean, compared with ... when I say, "fairly recent", I suddenly find it's about five years or something has slipped by at least, you know. Terrifying.

And these cards, this one's actually, these are all fairly recent, there's '87, '88 and '89 here.

Oh yes.

"Construction" 1987.

Yes. They're mostly done on old things that I'd started, and suddenly saw what I could do with them.

So, at what stage, this is quite a simple ... what stage was that at then, before you ... picked it up again?

I think I had just that whole shape but it was brown, it was a brown colour, and I suddenly saw how I could ... find a form inside it and ... yes. I thought it was quite interesting, how that's come out of that, because that's over at Gilly's, I think.

Yes, I saw it actually.

I like it. It's a very simple thing.

Yes, it is. What colour would you call that? A khaki kind of colour?

Mmm, yes. I don't know what you'd call it! I don't know!

And then the following year, this is just, we're just doing an example, "Painting with Red Oval", 1988.

There are a couple of those, yes.

I'm not quite sure of the dimensions of that one.

I don't know.

No, I mean, it doesn't say.

It doesn't say?

No, it doesn't say.

Oh, it's about 20" or 24" by ... between 15" and 16", I suppose. Now that was another one, you see, which was hanging about for a long time, and I suddenly, or fairly suddenly, decided I'd finish it, or work on it, and ... get something out of it. And then, of course, when they get framed up by Gilly, they look quite nice! That's another one. That's another one I had a long time, around for a long time, and eventually I saw what to do with these two forms here, and there's a curve in it somewhere, isn't there, scratched in, I think, somewhere. I can't see it. It should be scratched in clearly.

Yes, there is, here.

Yes. That's right, yes.

Yes. It's called "Painting with Blue Oval" 1989. Do you own that still, or is it somewhere else?

I don't know what's happened to that, to tell you the truth. I don't remember.

Is it an upright?

No, I think it's that way.

It's just the printing.

Which way have they put the number?

They've put it there.

Oh, it must be an upright, then. Yes. Yes.

And then you were talking about your routine in the early days, I mean, you said you didn't really have a routine.

I didn't have a routine.

But you spent a lot of time out, walking about.

Mmrn.

And you went bicycling a lot, didn't you?

Mmm.

Did you have a car, actually, or not?

I had a horrible old car for a year or two, that's all.

And then, then what happened? Did you always follow the same pattern, really, until when Denis Mitchell moved in here? Out and then ...

Yes, until I stopped riding a bike, then I couldn't, it wasn't safe for me to go on a bike. Yes, I think I did, yes. Yes.

And what was it like, working with someone else, well, not with someone else, but someone else around.

I don't like people working around me actually. I don't really care for it.

But you didn't mind with Denis?

Er..

Or did you manage to keep yourself...

I didn't like it all that much, but yes ... I used to come and help him sometimes, I didn't do much ... Tommy Rowe and him did that, the big one, and Tommy Rowe's been his ... he had one or two other people, he had a little black girl, actually, at one time, helping him, and I think one or two other people. Yes.

But you didn't often help him, did you, in the kind of sculpture?

Well, not really, but moving things, or something like that. I didn't really sculpture really, no, all I did was with Barbara, you see.

And then when you were painting in next door, is there much light in there, actually? Or is it...

I don't like the light here at all.

It's quite dark, isn't it?

I don't like it, yes. That's not a bad light in that one, but my other room is, well, it was worse, because it had a, a dirty old cloth right across the window.

Oh yes, it did, didn't it?

And the two other windows I blocked out, because they, people can look right in from the lane, looking down into you, you see. I didn't like that at all. Mmm.

And so did you, before you had this place, when you were ... you were working where you live now.

Yes.

Has that got a better light?

Yes, much better, yes.

Because it sticks out... is the studio facing the, the quay, the harbour?

There are two windows, one looking this way, and one looking that way, yes.

And do you actually work up there now a bit, or not?

Not at the moment, because I had the builders in, and I've never cleared away the mess they made! It's an appalling thing up there, but I, I like ... I am much more at home in that place than I've ever been ... I'd really like to be able to get back there again. I like it there. I've got machines and things there, lathes, and things like that there as well, yes. But on the light days, much much better. But there again, I used to work at night there a lot, you see, with fluorescents and other lights. I bought Gabo's old fluorescent light.

Yes, you said, last time, yes, yes.

I had that on for quite a long time after he went. Yes. Still got a box of apparatus on the wall! Yes. Yes. That's because I was always going out bringing back stones, and things like that, so the place is an absolute rubbish dump!

And did you ever sort of use them, did they help ... some of the stones you collected and things, did they ... did you use them in your painting, for sort of ideas, for their shapes and things, or not?

No. No. Oh well, yes, I must have used them as shapes, and also as ... you know, something gets into you from them, yes. Oh yes, I'm sure they did.

And there's, do you know those parcel stones?

Parcel stones?

Do you know them, I don't know whether you can get them round here.

No, I don't know what that means.

I don't know whether you find them round here, but they're like pebbles, you find them in Dorset, for example, and they've got thin, like string, white, all round them.

Oh yes, yes, I do, yes. I can understand the idea, yes. I can understand that. Mmm, they're very attractive, but I don't think you get them round here, actually. Well, you do, but I don't know whether you'd get that sort of string, mostly going one way, I think, I've got masses of those sort of things, oh yes. Down here, t's coarse, into a hard granite, or granite metamorphosis, you know. But, I think in Dorset it's all limestone, isn't it, a lot of it is limestone.

Yes, a fair amount is, yes.

Yes, with fossils and things in it, isn't it? Oh, you know Dorset, do you?

Not very well. I go to one bit, near Charmouth, occasionally.

Yes. I think Dorset, I don't know, I think I should like Dorset.

Yes, if you like the sea. It's sort of richer, there's ... it's sort of richer than down here, the country there.

Oh it's quite different, yes. Well, if you ... a friend of mine, George Dannatt, George, he lives there.

Wiltshire, isn't he?

Wiltshire, yes, but that's very near Dorset.

Yes, is it East Hatch, or somewhere?

East Hatch, that's right. That's not far away from Dorset, you know, I've been into Dorset from there when I've stayed with him. He's taken me down to the cliffs down near Portland Bill, you know. Yes, lovely. Very interesting. It seems lovely country, too.

Yes, it is.

It's ... a lot of it is utterly unspoiled and that, isn't it?

Mm, it is.

So far. So far, thank God!

But I think, increasingly, people are sort of discovering it as ...

Well, they can commute so far nowadays, can't they, that's the horrible thing about it.

Yes, it is. It is.

Well, you were brought up in London, were you?

No, I wasn't. I was brought up in ...

Oh, look at that awful picture, isn't it? Horrible!

That was an article about you in The Independent , when, well, you and Denis Mitchell, when the Tate in St. Ives opened.

Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes, I've got it somewhere, I think. But I can't bear that picture!

It is a bit strange!

They don't ought to come out like that! Mmm, Denis looks quite intense, doesn't he.

Mmm.

I can't read this, really, to tell you the truth. I'm so slow.

No, it doesn't matter. I just thought I'd remind you of it.

Who wrote this?

I'm not quite sure.

The Independent , that's rather a good paper, isn't it?

It was, but it's ...

It's ...

It's gone ... it's not doing too well nowadays, it's been taken over, hasn't it, by ... ah! I've found what I'm looking for now. I was just looking to see where your works were

© The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk John Wells Page 126 C466/18 Part 6 [Tape 3 Side B] in public collections, and the Arts Council of Great Britain, of course, and the British Council; the Contemporary Arts Society; The [in aud] Banking Foundation; City Art Galleries in Birmingham, Exeter, Plymouth and Wakefield; Derby County Council ... countless places. And obviously The Tate. John Moore's collection at Liverpool; Kendal, that's the Albert Hall Gallery; Sweden, you've got something in the Gothenberg Museum.

Oh, that's right, yes.

Do you think that was a result of the tour? There was a British Council tour.

Possibly, I don't...

And then in America, you've got Columbia University in New York; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; and the Philips Collection, as you said.

Yes. Yes.

As well as all these private ...

It's spread around quite a bit, isn't it?

Yes! Recently, this is an old chronology, actually, but your work hasn't been visible much lately, except for, I mean, obviously, at the Tate.

No, I haven't shown, ... after that second Waddington show, I haven't shown much.

Did that put you off a bit?

No, I just... showed locally in the Penwith and the Newlyn, and with Gilly, and eventually, I've just left it to Gilly.

But in an ideal world, would you like an exhibition?

No.

Would you like a big ...

No, I wouldn't.

You wouldn't want a retrospective, or anything?

No. No, no. I wouldn't.

Don't you want people to see your work?

Not while I'm around, no.

Well, you're very generous about other people's work, but you don't push your own.

No, I don't. I don't.

Why do you do it? Why do you paint? Why have you always ... why did you try to paint?

Oh! ... Oh, well, it's like what I said at the beginning, and that's why I wrote to Sven, it's all the same thing really, isn't it? You've got that, haven't you?

I have, but can you say it again?

No, I'm not going to say it. But it's ... I don't really know.

But you must have really wanted to.

Oh yes.

Because you were trying very hard to do it.

Oh yes, I did, indeed, yes.

And you worked very hard, and you've produced a lot of work.

A fair amount, not an awful lot, not like some do, mmm. Not like some do.

End of Part 6

Part 7 [Tape 4 Side A]

... I thought you might do.

Very rarely see him, no. I mean, we're good friends, you know, and I admire his work very much (referring to Terry Frost).

As I confessed to you, the recording we made the other day, wasn't very good, when you were talking about Christopher Wood.

Oh yes.

Because we had a problem with the microphone.

Yes.

Which was my fault.

Yes, if you fire a few questions at me and I'll try and answer them.

You were talking about how you went to Feock, and you were invited (we got all that bit) by your cousin, Norman...

That's right, Norman Williams, yes.

Williams. And they had invited, you were fiddling around painting, you said, and when they saw that you were interested in painting ...

Yes, this is the Brumwells.

The Brumwells, who were staying on a part of your cousin's property.

Yes, they were staying either near, or in one of my cousin's bungalows. He had one or two he could let, you see.

Oh, right. And they asked Winifred and Ben over?

Well, they said they'd get Ben and Winifred and Christopher Wood down, yes. And they did come down, yes. and that was ... I've talked about that in that Crane Kalman Catalogue, actually.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. But just for the record, if you could just say again, if you can remember. You, I was just... there was a time, the time when they came down then, you went off swimming, is that right?

Well, you know, you're living ... going out in little boats, or swimming, or walking around, yes, all the time, and I didn't see much of Winifred at all, but Ben would occasionally come out in a boat, and I saw one or two of his paintings, I think. And Kit Wood and I used to go swimming at the end of my cousin's land, there was a lovely little place where you could swim, and we also went out in boats. There was the oyster boats, you know, so we hired them, hired a boat, I suppose, and we went out one day to go out into the ... it's five miles up to Falmouth, and then away in the bay outside it's more than that, and we got as far as Falmouth, and we tore the peak of our mainsail, you see, so we had to put in there while the boatmen mended the thing, and we went ashore and had tea in a cafe overlooking the harbour, that's Kit Wood and ... oh, the Brumwells, I suppose. And some French people were trying to come ashore there, some Breton fishermen, and there was, all went to Customs place, and they couldn't get ashore, and so Kit Wood said, "Oh, I can speak French, I'll go down and see if I can do anything for them". He went down, and had a talk with them, and gave them some money to get ashore, and they gave him a lobster, which he brought back, and we put it in the bucket, and took it to sea with us, across to Helford, and every time the ship ... it was very rough, we shipped a lot of water, the old lobster started jumping about in the bucket, and it was fantastic. Yes.

And did you eat the lobster?

I think we did, eventually, yes. Yes.

And then you were saying that you kept in touch with Christopher Wood, by

I remember having one or two letters from him, yes, later on. But I was, I got very busy then, because I was doing my final exams, you see, so I couldn't see people very much at all.

And that was all, that was the summer of 1928.

That was '28, yes, yes.

And then it was on, during that summer that Nicholson and Kit Wood went over to St. Ives, and discovered, in inverted commas ...

It was, but I don't remember anything about that at all, about that time, no. The Wallis’. No, no.

No.

And then we, I mentioned last time, on the tape which has come out very badly, that Christopher Wood actually stayed in St. Ives, a bit later on that year. And I've just checked up, you thought... you weren't quite sure about that.

No, I'm not sure about that.

But according to the, the Tate, St. Ives, Catalogue, he moved to St. Ives, near Wallis' cottage in Back Road West, until November of the same year.

Oh yes.

And then he went off, as we know, to Brittany.

To Brittany, yes.

Where he did a lot of work, didn't he?

He did a lot of work over there, I think, yes, mmm.

And then he came back to Mousehole, in the spring of 1930, apparently.

Did he?

Yes, because there are some paintings of Mousehole here. And then he went to Salisbury and saw his mother, and then ...

Yes, yes. Yes. You see, at that time I was immersed in my exams, you see, I took the whole of the MB exam in 1930, and that was that.

And are you pleased, I mean, are you glad that you had your experience, being in the medical field, being a doctor, being a GP, doing hospital work, etc.?

Well, I suppose in a way, yes, but I feel rather guilty that I didn't carry on with it, you know, and ... you know, these people helped me so much, and I felt badly about that really.

You mean the people that arranged ... the trustees that arranged ...

Yes, indeed. Yes. But I was driven mad with this wanting to paint, and that's it. Do you know that... Fleming, as you know, was a colleague of my father's, he was very interested, he joined the ... he belonged to the Chelsea Arts Club and painted, yes, in his spare time, what little bit of spare time, yes.

Have you ever seen anything he produced, or not?

No, I saw a reproduction of one in his biography I read, yes. Whatever he did, it would be competent, whatever else you can say about it, yes. End of Part 7 Tape 4 Side B is blank

Part 8 [Tape 5 Side A]

John Wells, interviewed at his studio in Newlyn, by Tamsyn Woollcombe, 20th November, 1994

Last time I came, you talked a bit about your father. You mentioned that he was a bacteriologist.

That's right.

And he was a colleague of Fleming's?

Yes, that's right.

But I just wondered how much you knew about him, how much your mother told you about him, whether he, you know, was a sort of influence in your life somehow, even though he wasn't there, through your mother. Did she talk about him to you and your sister?

Well, not really, except to say, you know, how terribly much she missed him and that, and what a lovely man he was. Well, I think he must have been something quite special because all the, his colleagues rallied round and helped us, you see, when he died.

Yes. What, when they got together that Carnegie Hero ...

Well, they got together, that's right, the Carnegie Hero Fund Trust, yes. And also, I think, collected some money as well, - a little bit of money as well. But Sir Alwroth White, who was the Head of the Department, the Innoculation Department at St. Mary's, was my godfather, you see. You've got that down, have you?

Yes. That's right, yes.

You knew that?

Yes. Yes.

And he was lovely.

And so he was quite a major influence on you, was he? Well, did he keep in touch?

Yes he did, I think, yes, because my sister and I used to go down to ... another of them, Dr. Colebrook, they had a lovely little house in the woods in ... some 30 or 40 miles outside London, and we went and stayed there. And Sir Alwroth White had a little cottage near there, and we used to go and have tea with him, you know. And he was lovely.

Whereabouts was that, or don't you know?

Stoke Poges. Do you know where that is?

No, I don't. I know the name.

It's in ... oh dear! I've forgotten the name of the county now. It's outside London altogether, anyway, it's not, well, it maybe not now, but it was quite wild then.

Yes. Quite rural, was it?

Oh yes. Oh yes. I remember, there was a stream running through this wood, it was a, it was a ... a woodman's cottage, really, and there were a lot of grass snakes, I would suppose, along the edge of this wood, and I used to try and catch them. And Dr. Colebrook was absolutely terrified of snakes, and he couldn't bear this thing of mine, trying to catch them! It was very funny! It was right in the woods, and it was a marvellous place. And then there was another one, another doctor, another colleague of my father's, who had a cottage out in ... somewhere near there, in the country, with a lovely ... reservoir, or pool or something, near it. And I used to go down, we used to stay with them and go out in ... he had little coracles made with wicker, like a

© The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk John Wells Page 135 C466/18 Part 8 [Tape 5 Side A] prehistoric sort of thing, and two of you went out onto the stream or the river, or whatever it was ... no, it was a little pond, one in each one with a paddle, and you had to upset the other one, you see, without hitting him personally, but try to upset his coracle by pressing on it. And that was enormous fun. Yes, he was, he was a lovely chap, and three, three children about our age, you know. And we went to Switzerland with them once, I remember. We were all sent out there with his children and ... I think the boy was called John, too, like me, and we used to ski in the most dangerous and awful way sometimes, by Wengen. It was, we had to go up in the mountain railway because the snow was rather poor early on, and we came down and there was a place called "the field of bumps", and I remember, he and I used to have ...

I've been there, actually.

You've been to Wengen, have you?

Yes.

We went up to the town of Scheidegg in the little railway, you know, and skied down from there.

Yeh, that bump, the "burmps".

Pardon?

What they call "the burmps".

Oh, you remember that, how marvellous! So we went, we used to go down to ski from the top down Grindelwald, and come back round through Lauterbrunnen on the railway, yes. And then we had a three-day trip once, we went up to the town of Scheidegg, and skied down to Meiringen, no, to Grindelwald, and then climbed up the Grosse Scheidegg, and then skied down into Meiringen, and came back by the train. That was, that was quite a trip, you see, up and then spent the night at Grindelwald, and then on to Meiringen and then back, yes.

And was that you and your sister, and these three children of Dr. Colebrook?

Yes. Not Dr. Colebrook, I've forgotten his name at the moment.

Oh, the other...

Fleming. Not Fleming, another one. I've forgotten his name now. Yes.

And did your mother go with you?

No, no, she was ill at the time. No, it was just to get us away, really.

Was she ill, physically ill, or knocked out by the death of your father?

Well, she had quite a lot of mental illness, actually, which was very, very disturbing, yes. Yes. Yes, yes.

What age were you when this holiday took place?

Well, I wasn't qualified, about 18 or something like that, I suppose.

I see. So you were quite young then.

Oh yes. Yes, we were quite young then, yes. We had one trip up in the mountain, you know, we got up Kleine Scheidegg and then went to the .. Jungfrau?

Jungfraujoch, up in the mountainside, and I remember looking out on the glacier thing, Willie did a lot of drawings of.

I was going to say that, yes.

Yes. The Eiger Glacier and the Eissmeyer, I remember these names, Eiger Glacier, Eissmeyer, Jungfraujoch, they used to say, these wonderful mountains, there was the

Jungfrau and the Silberhorn, and the Schreckhorn and the Finsterdarehorn and the Wilthorn, I remember them all.

No, I think once you've seen that scenery there, nothing else quite matches it in mountains, in my opinion.

It was absolutely marvellous. We only went, I went there once, that's all. But then years later, I went twice to a place called Lech. Have you been to Lech? Well, how marvellous! Yes. Well, once a friend took me, Lord Amel Reid he was called, whose aunt left him some money, and so we went out together there, and we had a week or so there. And then the next time I went by myself.

And when was this, then? Much later? When you were ...

It must have been about 19 ... I was just qualified, I think, then.

In the early thirties?

Yes, in the early thirties, that's right. Mmm, yes. I can't remember the names of the Lech mountains and things. It was a really nice lake, we had to climb everywhere, I think. Didn't you?

Well, in my day, there were ski lifts and things.

Yes, ski lifts. No, there weren't any ski lifts.

And cable cars and all that.

Yes.

So you were quite a good skier?

Um, no, I was really ordinary, very ordinary, yes. I did win the novices race once, because I just couldn't stop and that was it! [Laughs] I've skied down here. I've

© The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk John Wells Page 138 C466/18 Part 8 [Tape 5 Side A] skied on the Lands End Road, would you believe that? Yes, just after the War, there was tremendous snow here, and I found a place there, just outside Penzance, with a steep hill, and I used to practice there, and then I went on the ... went up the hill over Newlyn and right across to the Lands End Road, and skied along there. And the next day I was going to ski over to see a friend in St. Ives, but it started to rain and it spoilt it, it wasn't... couldn't do it. So that's an interesting memory.

Mmm. So did you ever discuss with Willie Barns Graham her, her glacier?

Oh, yes I did talk to her a bit about that, yes. Yes, 'cos they were lovely those drawings Yes.

There's one hanging next door to your 'Sea Forms' in the Tate.

Yes. Yes, that's right. Mmm. Mmm. Well, when the Prince came along, he, he was very interested in that, to know how she did the lines on it.

Oh, that's right.

I was next to her, next to her, and he stopped and talked to her about the lines and that, and of course, then he came to me ... nothing to say! He didn't like my things at all.

Oh!

I don't blame him, either, but there we are!

I'm sure he did.

He didn't. Don't think. Well, he's not interested in abstract painting really, is he?

No, he's not. But getting back to your childhood, but your mother was okay mentally when you were sort of... before you went off to school, to Epsom, was she? Because you said she was a nurse, a VAD.

She was a VAD during the War, yes, during the 1914 War, well, she was Matron of a little hospital we had next door. The house next door was turned into a little hospital and she was in charge of it all, yes. Yes.

So she was all right then?

Oh, she was all right then, yes.

And you used to go and stay with her parents down in Cornwall, on the other coast, didn't you, near Padstow?.

Yes, yes. Mmm.

St. Mary's.

Yes. Yes, indeed. Stayed on the farm there.

And she was one, you showed me that wonderful photograph. She was one of 20 children, hut 11 survived or something, is that right?

No. There were 11 in the photograph, but I think there were 20 or more, 22 I think there may have been altogether, I'm not sure. Two or three of them died in infancy with diphtheria or something like that, you know. But in that photograph, there were 11, yes. How they all got together, I don't know, but there they were. That reminds me, I've lost that among other things as well, for the moment.

I'm sure it's not really lost.

It's somewhere, but where ... I've lost it. Oh, I can't talk about it. It'll surface.

And then, so that was that set of grandparents. So you used to go and stay with them quite regularly in holidays and things, they didn't come to see you, did they?

I think we mostly went down in the summer, I should think. But I also went up to my father's parents up in Leicester, yes. I don't know whether my sister ever went there,

I did, quite a lot, yes.

And did they talk about your father to you?

Don't remember much, no. No. There were two brothers. One of them we got to know quite well, because he married my mother's sister. Oh, really.

Mmm. He was an engineer, and he used to go to Russia a lot. He spoke Russian and was, you know, always going off to Russia.

And did he talk about his travels to Russia to you?

No, he didn't really, because I didn't know very much.

What did you do when you went to Leicester, to stay with those grandparents, then? Were the uncles around in the house at that point?

No. No. No. No. I don't know what we did. I don't know what we did. I can't remember much of what we did. I suppose I went and saw one or two of them, I don't know. I didn't like Leicester much at all.

I suppose you were used to the country.

Yes.

So when you were, when you got to Ditchling, I mean, you were quite small, so you just gradually grew up there. But do you remember the countryside around there? Did you enjoy it, the countryside?

Oh yes, we did indeed. My sister and I both had bicycles, and we went all over the

© The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk John Wells Page 141 C466/18 Part 8 [Tape 5 Side A] place, and walked a lot. My sister rode a lot, she was a great rider. And she got me on a horse once or twice, I remember! [Laughs] She had an old boy on the ... on Ditchling Common, which was where Eric Gill started off, one of his places, and she was Isuch a good rider that he let her have horses for nothing, you see. So occasionally, I had a ride from there as well. He was called Mr. Button, and she used to ride in all the gymkhanas around the place, you know. She was very good. And we used to ride on the Downs, on the South Downs, which was lovely. It was all open then, there was no barbed wire or anything then. Terrific.

And did you see the sea from the Downs, from there?

No. Not... not unless you went a lot, a lot further towards the sea, you wouldn't see it, I don't think. No. No.

But you were saying, just earlier on, I mean, last time, in fact, I asked you whether you knew Gill and people like that.

Yes.

And you, you said your sister was more in with them, because you'd gone away to school.

That's right. Yes, I went, I don't know when I went to school, but I was only about... I was about nine, I suppose.

But you said just now, you remembered having lessons, having had lessons from someone.

From Amy Sawyer.

Yes. Which you didn't mention last time. Who was she?

Well, I don't know. She was a sort of eccentric old lady, as I thought of her then. But I still remember some of the things she taught me.

What like?

Well, making your shadows of the three colours, which you used also for the highlights, you see. And the highlights were a base of red, yellow and blue, and the three mixed together made the shadows to go round those colours, and I've never forgotten that. In fact, I still think I've got a picture, a sort of very dashing picture of my sister I did then, with a lot of slushy paint all over it. But I remember, we talked about modern art, I must have been conscious of seeing some very weird things, and I said I thought it was like looking through a cut-glass knob at life, at something, and, you know ... I think she quite, I liked that idea.

What, so do you think...

Cubist things I suppose I was thinking of. Mmm.

So do you think she showed you reproductions? She must have done, I suppose.

I don't remember that at all. No. I don't remember what her things, her own things were like, but they must have survived. So it's marvellous. She must be thought of quite a little bit, as she's still, you know, remembered in Ditchling. It's wonderful. That's an awful long time ago.

Yes, because what you're referring to now, what's jogged your memory a bit about her is that your friend, George Dannatt, went over to Ditchling recently, well went to Glyndebourne, and then passed through Ditchling, and went to the local museum.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And brought you back some information.

Sent me, sent me them back, yes. Well, you see, they've got a ... there's a list of all the things that Ditchling's got, the museum's got in it.

That's right.

But I think I might, when I get in touch with them, I'll send for that, and get that, because I'd love to have all that. It would be marvellous, and it would help them a bit.

And Edward Johnstone, as well as Gill and Hilary Pepler, David Jones, etc., Bangwyn, and Ethel Mairet, the weaver.

Yes. She was a great person, yes. She did, you know, whether she was Swedish or not herself, I'm not sure, but she brought these ideas from Sweden, about vegetable dying, you know, and she used to do all her things with those vegetable dyes. And I've got a little book of hers called "Vegetable Dyes", but I've lost it for the moment. It's printed by St. Dominic's Press, I think.

Was it?

Oh yes. Lovely hand-printed book. Marvellous. All the different lichens and things like that, you know. Mostly, a lot of the things made yellow dyes, plants do, you know. But other things was, if different mordants Do you know all about mordants and things like that? Well, a mordant is something which helps to bite into the cloth a bit better, into the wool a bit better. But things like a vegetable root will make a, with a bichromate, mordant, will make a pink/red dye, which was used quite a bit. And things like that. But the colours were so marvellous. I remember these absolutely gorgeous colours. Super.

So when you remember, you say you remember the colours, did you go into her studio and see her with her loom set up?

Oh yes, I went there, yes. I used to go down there. It was on the road to the Downs in Ditchling, on the left, over a stream, I remember. My sister worked there for a time, you know, and learnt a bit about it. Yes. So I went there, certainly.

And did you see her actually in action, with the shuttle?

Well, I dont't know that I did see that, didn't see that so much.

And did she, did she wear the clothes she ... I mean, hand-spun, hand-woven ...

Well, I think she would. I'm almost certain she did, yes. Yes.

And did your sister, did she?

Oh she had, I've got the remains of a hat made out of woven stuff, yellow and blue. All absolutely eaten with great holes and moth-eaten, you know - a thing like that. Yes, oh yes.

Did you wear it, too?

I didn't wear that hat, no.

Did you wear anything that they ...

Yes, I had some silk ties which came from there, lovely hand-spun, vegetable dyed silk. I've still got the red one.

That's rather nice.

A beautiful colour still. Yes. Oh, yes.

So I wonder, I wonder how old you were then? The person, Amy Sawyer, who taught you, gave you a few classes, did she teach you before the man, Ginette, from Brighton Art School?

I should think Mr. Ginette would be later. I think so. But he, I think he was Head of the Brighton Art School, I'm not sure. He used to go, he, I suppose he went by train every day. But they had a lovely house in the Main Street in Ditchling, with two staircases, and a garden at the back, with a great long stairway up to the top garden, and then the wall of the church above that, again. And my sister was very friendly

© The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk John Wells Page 145 C466/18 Part 8 [Tape 5 Side A] with the daughter, and there was a son and daughter, like my sister and myself, you see. But they were lovely people. They had a lovely house. Yes, beautiful.

And when he taught you, what did you do with him? What did he teach you, or how did he

Well, I remember that time, when we went up to the windmill on ... I've forgotten the name of...

Ditchling Beacon?

No, it wasn't Ditchling Beacon. It was a little hill just outside Ditchling, and the other way from the Ditchling Beacons. And ... Creek Hill I think it was called, I'm not sure. And he took me out, and water coloured. He did a water colour sketch, and then told me to try and do it, and I tried to do it. I don't know whether or not maybe that was the only lesson I had with him, quite possibly. I don't really remember another one! [Laughs]

Whose idea, I wonder, was it, that you had these lessons with him and with Amy Sawyer?

I suppose I got interested, and my mother would have arranged it, you see. Mother would have arranged it, I think, yes. Mmm.

But... so you and your sister used to play together, because you were quite close in age. You had your own friends, separate friends, did you? Or were you really together? Because these children in the village ...

Yes, I... I suppose we all played and things ... I don't know what we did. My sister and I played in our garden, I know. Yes.

And was it a hit of a wrench when you went off to Epsom?

Oh, it was horrible. I hated it. Awful. Awful. I really detested it. All the way

© The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk John Wells Page 146 C466/18 Part 8 [Tape 5 Side A] through, until the last year I was there, when they treated you like a human being, and then it was all right. But it was quite tough, you know. During the War, the food was awful. And ... I didn't like it.

Were there any lessons that you particularly disliked, or particularly liked there?

I did have some art lessons there for a short time, I think, because I was in the....out in the playground, there was a little hut, or a little small building, and we, that was where we had art lessons, in there. We had to pay extra for that, I think, and after a time we couldn't afford it. Yes.

But...

I don't know whether there was anything special. Because I did my First MB at school, you see, and so you, I was very interested in ... we had a thing called "The Mermaid's Tavern", which was a little art, literary group there. One of the masters was very keen on literature, taught English, you know, and ... what was he called? Mr. Lesant, I think he was called. And that was very good. That was very good. "The Mermaid Tavern".

Can you remember what books you read, discussed then? Or what authors or ...

No, I don't, actually. I don't. No, we had to give all that up, you see, in the last year, because we had to do, specialised in, take all our time in physics and chemistry and biology, you see. That was the First MB.

And you didn't object to that? You wanted to be a doctor? Or they thought you wanted to be a doctor?

No, not really I didn't, I don't think. Not very keen, but had to do it, and that's that! But I managed to get the First MB all right.

Sorry, go on.

As I say, I managed to get that all right, then I had, then we went up to University College and Hospital.

But before that, some time when you were at school, at Epsom, the family moved, didn't they, to Lindfield.

We had to go, yeah, then we had to go to London when I went to the College, when I went to the UCH, at University College. Yes. And that was a horrible wrench to leave, leave the country and go up there ... and this horrible suburban house. Oh, dreadful! It's no wonder my sister got married and went off to Ceylon, you see!

Did you say "no wonder"?

Yes. Well, actually, it's interesting, because the little ... the prep school I went to in Ditchling, one of the masters there got very friendly with us. I don't know why, but he ... he, he lived on his own down there and he happened to like coming to see us all, you see. He went off to Ceylon with £5 in his pocket, and I don't know how many years later he came back and said, "Is your sister still going?" And married her! Married her!

Oh! How romantic!

Very romantic. And they really did very well, they had a boy and a girl, and he did very well out in Ceylon, I think.

What, was he in tea, or something?

He was, yes, he was a tea planter, or I think he had another job. I think, tea planter, and then he had a big business, tea business or something, as well, yes. Tea planting to start with, and then big business. She loved it out there, bred horses and things like that. Just up her street altogether. And it was still a safe place over there, you know. It was marvellous there in those days, I think.

And did you ever go out there?

No, I didn't. My mother did, when, when the boy was born, she went out there, yes.

And what was her married name, your sister?

France.

And what's...

France.

And what's her Christian name?

Margaret. Margaret France, yes.

And what was his name, her husband? Her husband's Christian name?

Christian name? Philip. Yes, Philip France, yes.

And was he quite a bit older than her, then, presumably, was he?

Yes. Yes, he must have been. Yes, he must have been a bit older, yes, several years older. But she survived him. He died a few years ago. He had a ... some sort of stroke or something which ... my poor sister had to look after him for a long time. It was a terrible time. But they came back. And he was in the RAF over there, when the War came on, and ... wasn't flying, he was on the administrative side, you know, they used to go out a bit, I think. And then they were moved back to England, to St. Mawgan here, yes, St. Mawgan, and as soon as she got settled back here, they were sent up, right up to Scotland to Well, where was it? I've forgotten the name of it. Never mind. Up to Scotland, and they finished up there. And, but during the War, she was ... she was stuck in ... the daughter was stuck in India, in a convent there, and my sister and her son were stuck in Australia. They were trying to get to somewhere or other, and they got... they couldn't get there, and she got to Australia, and her husband stayed on in Ceylon. Strange! Yes.

Sorry, so when ... have I missed something? He was in the RAF in the War?

Yes. In Ceylon.

In Ceylon. I see.

But posted back here towards the end of the War, yes.

End of Part 8

Part 9 [Tape 5 Side B]

Sorry, go on about your sister.

Yes. They went back to Ceylon at the end of the War, and then he decided to retire, and they looked all around the world, and she came looking for somewhere to live, and decided that Ireland would be a good idea, because of... some financial reasons, anyway, and so she picked the place where she's living now.

And what is ...

That's called New Ross, on the South-Eastern corner of Ireland. Yes.

Yes, I think you talked a bit about that last time. Was she able to carry on, or take up being horsey again, in Ireland, or not?

Oh yes, she ... I don't know if she actually bred horses. I don't think she did, but she was riding all the time, yes. Yes.

And have you been out there?

Oh yes, I've been there a few times after he died, yes. Didn't go before. The nephew used to go over there quite a bit. Well, he was brought up there part of the time, you see, yes. He used to have his school holidays over there, you see, when he was young.

And was he over here at boarding school, the nephew?

Yes, he was at Rugby. Mmm, yes. Yes.

And there was a niece as well, the one that had been in the convent.

That's right, yes. Well, she was in the Foreign Service, and went all over the world and places, and she was out in the Far East, and became ill, had terrible headaches and that, and they thought she had a cerebral tumour, and they operated on her, but they

© The British Library Board http://sounds.bl.uk John Wells Page 151 Part 9 [Tape 5 Side B] couldn't do anything. And she was flown home by the RAF, and died in Great Ormond Street. Yes, yes, yes. It was very very terrible for my sister. She got on with her so marvellously, you know. It was very very sad. She was a lovely girl, Susan.

What age was she when that happened, then?

She was about 30 I suppose. Yes. And she's buried at Selbourne, I think.

Oh yes, Hampshire.

She died there, well, I think she was living there for ... I don't know why ... why there. There must be some reason. Yes, Hampshire, yes. The natural history of Selbourne, yes.

And so that, you'd left Lindfield then. Sorry, I'm just going back again now to your

Yes, yes, yes.

And went to London and lived in Wembley.

Yes.

Was that when you were at University College and Hospital?

That's right.

And that was about 1925 or so, wasn't it.

Yes.

That you first went there.

Yes, '30 when I finished, yes.

So, and ... while you were there, you were obviously working very hard. But you, at some point, you had something in an exhibition, didn't you. The Daily Express one.

Ah yes! [Laughs] That was the Daily Express Young Artist Exhibition, 1927. I did a funny little drawing of a bird. £1-5-00 when I sold it. And it was very interesting, because I've got the catalogue of that Exhibition, and Ben, Christopher Wood and all sorts of famous artists showed in that show. It was very very interesting. They never had another one. They were going to have one every year, but it never occurred again. I don't know why.

So I wonder why, I mean, how come you suddenly ... was it suddenly you put a drawing into it? You must have been doing art.

I did go and have lessons. I used to go to life classes at, at the St. Martin's School of Art, two or three days a week. After my day's work in the Hospital, I went and did an evening class, and then went home and worked half the night again after that. I don't know how I did it! But there we are, I did do that.

And, can you remember at the evening classes, anybody there, who taught you?

No. No. I didn't know anybody, no. I didn't know anybody, no. I didn't know anybody, and I wasn't any good either.

But you nevertheless, you wanted to do it?

I wanted to do it, yes.

And were you thinking, were you thinking that you actually wanted to do that more seriously?

Oh yes, I was, I think, yes. It was in the back of my mind, I think, for a long time.

So when do you think it first dawned on you that... when did you start thinking

I don't know. I don't know. I know when I went to Scilly, my idea was to go there for five years and save up enough to chuck it all up and try and live on art.

Yes, well, that was a bit later. Yes, I remember you telling me. It wasn't all that later. It was

That was '36

Yes, so it's a wee bit later.

Well, it's only two or three years, isn't it?

But if you ...

I did hospital work, you see ..

Yes, but 1927 you had your drawing in the Daily Express Young Artist Exhibition. Yes.

So, and I know what happened the following year, which we'll get on to in a minute, but I just wondered, I didn't realise before, that it had been brewing in your mind.

I think it must have been. It must have been living in Ditchling and meeting all these artists, all that sort of thing did something to me, I think.

And your friends that you were at the University College Hospital with, who were they? What did you do?

University College?

And Hospital, when you were there, what, what friends did you have, and what did you do with them?

Mostly worked with them, I think. Mostly ran through specimens with them, and exam papers, and things like that. I don't remember many other people much.

What about, did you ever go to the cinema, or anything?

I think I did, yes. But I can't remember it very well.

And girls and ... were there only men you were doctors with?

No, we had a mixed lot. We had a mixed lot, yes. I didn't know any of the girls very well. Well, there weren't so many, of course. Yes, I met this friend, who was Head of the ... who was, he was a registrar or something, and he was called the Honourable somebody or other then, and I was interested in music as well, and I think I bought an EMG gramophone, and had that in the hospital when I was, when I was in there, for doing my midwifery or something, and so I got to know one or two people who were interested in music, including this friend of mine, who was later Lord Amel Reid, you see. And got very friendly with him, and he was interested in a lot of art and things, and things like that.

So, ...

Pardon?

Sorry, go on. I'll ask you something in a minute. No, I was just wondering whether you went to any exhibitions and art galleries and things, with him, in London? .

Well, I think I went mostly on my own. Yes, I did. Yes, I went to anything I could think of. I remember the most marvellous Picasso exhibition, all still life paintings, which really knocked me out. Tremendous. So that must have been about that time. And...

Was that in a commercial gallery, or in a main museum?

Yes, in a commercial gallery, I think, or one of the very famous galleries, you know, mmm. But that absolutely knocked me out. I remember, you know, you know Gower Street, do you?

Yes.

And Tottenham Court Road?

Yes.

Well the road, Tottenham Court Road used to go, run up into Hampstead Road, I think it was, wasn't it.

I don't know.

Went across, the crossroads, the crossroads at the top of Tottenham Court Road, and then it went on ... there's so much rebuilding up there you wouldn't know, but about half a mile up there, there was a shop called Brice-Smiths, which I used to haunt, because they sold art materials. And they had cheap stuff down in the basement, and I bought... I used to go in there, and it was marvellous. So I was thrilled about it then, yes. Yes.

So all that was prior to your meeting with Christopher Wood?

That was '28, yes.

Yes. So you were, you were on the right track, as it were.

Well, I was, yes. It must have been, yes, it must have been ... yes, must have been ... what do you call it when you've nearly got a disease, but not quite? "Sickening for it"! Yes, I was sickening for it! [Laughs] Well, I must have been, because I was playing about then with water colour pictures and that. And I remember Ben had the goodness to say that one of them "had a nice feeling about it". That was the, you know, that was high praise for him, really, in a way, I think. Yes.

And can you remember what, when you, when you were using ... what, were you using water colour or oils?

Then, I was using water colour. But I think, yes, I remember going to Feock, I don't know when that was now, it may have been later, with a great box of oil paints, which I got at Jermyn Street, "Le Chatier Barb" [ph] [in aud] Do you know those people?

No.

They were very, very high-class, well, a very nice shop, artists' colourists, you know. "Le Chertier Barbe"(?) [Laughs] I remember that so well. Yes, I've still got it.

And when you went to the shop, what did you say it was called? Brice?

Brice-Smiths.

Brice-Smiths. That....

They must have gone long ago. Pardon?

When you went there, the colours you got, were they pigment? Sort of powders or ... I don't know what I bought there, I can't remember. I do remember, quite a lot later, getting a, finding some deep red cadmium powder, in the basement, and they said I could have it cheap, you know, and I gave some of this to Gabo, years later, because he wanted a dark red, and so I gave him some of this. And I've still got it, this deep crimson red cadmium. Quite rare and quite expensive stuff, you know. Whether he used it, I could never make out whether he used it or not. I think he must have done.

And did you use it yourself?

Not very often. It's the sort of colour I don't really like very much, I don't think. I've still got it. I may use it yet, you never know! It was powder colour. Mmm. In fact, I've got it here somewhere, I think.

And ... so when you went to Feock, I mean, you have talked about... you talked about the wonderful time when you went swimming and fishing and ... sailing, with Christopher Wood. We talked about that.

Yes.

And you also mentioned that your cousins had invited ...no, you were staying with Norman Williams, your cousin, and wife.

Yes.

And they saw you were interested ... they introduced you to the Brumwells, didn't they.

That's right, yes.

And the Brumwells saw you were interested in painting, and they suggested you met some real artists.

Well, that's how I remember it, yes. They said, "Would you like some real artists to come down?" And I said, "Well, that would be marvellous". And so they, they got them down. Well, that's how I remember it, anyway. It may be wrong. I expect there's another interpretation of it. But down they came with Christopher Wood. And I think they stayed in the bungalow next door to my cousin's place, and Kit Wood stayed somewhere in the village, I think.

And what were your first impressions of Ben and Winifred, then?

Oh, what a difficult thing to ... I didn't see Winifred very much, actually. But I must have been very impressed with Ben, although I didn't understand what he was doing, you know, although it's not very difficult now you look back. But it was, you see, I made a friend of him ever since, and never, never lost him from that day, really, because I, soon after that I was visiting him up in ... his studio in Hampstead, yes. What was it called?

The Mall Studios.

The Mall, that's it, yes. Yes. Yes. So it was very strange. Very strange.

And do you remember what you used to talk about?

Ben?

With him? Yes.

No! Not at all! I don't think he'd talk about painting. No.

But after that summer of 1928,1 think you said you had to work very hard on your ...

Well, I had to, yes, because I had quite a lot, I had to do everything.

And then, when you first qualified, you went, didn't you, to various hospitals?

Well, first of all I did a locum in Wembley, actually, and I swore that I'd never do GP as long as I lived, because I detested it. And then I had to do something. I got a locum at Norwich. I worked for a surgeon there called Sir Hamilton Balance, and I got on with the chaps up there all right, and so I went back there as Casualty Officer, permanent job. The first was a locum, you see. And then from there, I did ear, nose and throat, and eyes. And then I got very friendly with somebody that took my job on as Casualty Officer, who became a very well-known orthopaedic surgeon afterwards, and he told me how to get, apply for jobs and that, and he took me over to Nottingham, and I got the job there as House Physician, and then House Surgeon. A year House Physician, and 18 months House Surgeon. Then my mother got ill and I had to leave that. And that's how I get to Scilly.

But before you just get on to that bit, so who was the man, this chap who you became friendly with, who took you to Nottingham?

He was called Tommy Brittan, yes.

And what other friends did you have at that stage, when you were in Norwich?

Ah, in Norwich, I was a great, got very friendly with Dr. Rogerson, who was in practice outside, and I did a locum for his partner once. And then we got very friendly, and always, from that onwards, we were very friendly. He was very keen on music, he was a very good pianist. And the three of us went up to the North of Scotland once. Lovely. Went up to Sutherland, had a holiday up there. And I kept in touch with him on and off until he died. I lost him during the War. But he became President of the Norwich Musical Society, and he had, well, he had a horrible time, he got polio and ... terrible really, that was.

And so when you were in Norwich then, what did you do? I mean, where did you live, and

Lived in the hospital.

Oh, I see.

Oh yes, lived in the hospital. And lived in a very, very ... art didn't come into it at all, I don't think. I was a bit interested in the music, but I was really very crude. I spent most of my time in the pubs when I wasn't in the hospital! [Laughs]

And did you go sailing from there?

No, I didn't. Oh, I did once, yes. I went, yes, I went... one of the, one of the chaps was... knew some London people who had a boat at Burnham-on-Crouch, and asked me, they wanted another crew, and I went on this North Sea race.

Yes, I think you mentioned that last time.

I mentioned that, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, we went down to Burnham and did this three days sailing, yes. Mmm. I think I had my old Bentley then, so I drove home ...

Oh, a Bentley!

Yes. An old banger, really an old banger Bentley. And took my friend down from Norwich to Burnham.

Which friend was that?

He was one of two brothers, I can't remember his name now, but he was, he knew all these funny London people who had, were keen on boats, you know, these ... Stock Exchange people or something like that. They were odd people, you know. She was a beautiful boat. She was a Bristol Channel pilot cutter. Yes. And the skipper of this boat was one of these chaps, and he had a varnished bowler hat, which I shall never forget! I couldn't for get! A varnished bowler hat, it was a marvellous thing! I remember we were drifting, there was no wind at all, and they all said, "Well, look, the skipper's got to put the, put the rope on the, on the anchor", so he had to tie the anchor on, make the anchor fast on it, and we lost it! So he wasn't all that good at knots! Well, I can tie an anchor knot now! You've got to put a double hitch round the, round the ring, you know, and then a double half-hitch at the top, and then you're safe, you see, and you can get it undone easy enough. It doesn't... did you know that?

I'm hopeless at sailing. Absolutely hopeless. I just have to sit there.

If you're going to work your own boat, you've got to know these things, you know. Because I had a little boat in Scilly, of course, my own boat, and went around everywhere I could have the nerve to go, which wasn't everywhere, by a long chalk! Didn't... would never go round through the Bishop Rock on my own. It was tricky. I did go to the Western Briar which was tricky enough. That was about the furthest I dared to go.

And when you went to Nottingham, what did you think of Nottingham?

Well, I enjoyed Nottingham, I enjoyed the Hospital's work, you know, very much, mmm.

And where were you living then?

In the hospital again, yes. Well, we had a little house, it was in the hospital grounds, it was ... you know, the hospital was built around this funny old Edwardian house, yes, called Brockstone House, I remember, and there were six or seven of us living there, yes. Mmm.

And what did you do? Were you really concentrating on your work?

Oh yes. Yes, there was a lot of work, you see, yes. Then I used to go and play golf when I was off, go out in the country a bit, yes. Take the nurses out.

What did you do for entertainment, then, with the nurses?

Oh, take them to tea! Yes, yes. Go to Newark, there was a lovely coaching pub in Newark, I remember. Do you know Newark?

No.

Well, ah, marvellous place. There's this great big huge arch where you go in, and then there's ... a tea place inside it. It was on one of the London to Gretna coaching routes [in aud] route, I think.

And did some of your colleagues marry nurses?

Yes, they did, I think, yes, one or two of them. None of us were married. Some of the people now are married. Terry, my neighbour here, his son is married, and I think the daughter, I don't know if she's married.

What do you mean?....sorry.

The daughter has gone to Norwich, actually. No, the son has gone to Norwich, and they've got a house outside Norwich, man and wife. He's married!

What's the matter with that, then? Oh, you mean he's a doctor?

They get married before they, even before they're qualified.

Oh, I see.

Well, we never did that! My goodness! Good gracious me! There was no such thing as married House people.

Why, because it was ... you were too busy?

Well, it wasn't done. . I don't know. It just wasn't thought of, I suppose. I think the whole course is a bit longer now, and you've got to do a couple of years or something, in practice outside, haven't you, and things like that. Anyway, there are different attitudes now.

So then, ... sorry, go on.

No, I wasn't saying anything.

But when, so from Nottingham ... your mother was ill, and so was that when you came down here looking for a practice down here, or somewhere in Cornwall?

Yes. Yes. I can't remember how we did it, because ... I can't remember now exactly what happened. She came down with me, I had my car, and she was, must have got better again, and we came down and were looking round the place for a practice, you know. And then I saw this advertisement for, I don't know where it was, but it... I somehow realised it must be Scilly, and I went over and saw the chap there, and he, we got on together, and so I bought the practice. Yes. Yes.

And then when you were there, on Scilly, did you ... we talked about your painting and that, in quite, quite a lot of detail, actually, last time, didn't we.

Did we? I don't know.

Mmm. I mean, I was just going to ask you, and you said, I remember you said you took Horizon ...

Yes.

... and things.

Yes.

Do you remember what sort of articles you read?

Read it all. Read them all. Read it right through. In fact, I've just copied out one for John Emmanuel, my friend John Emmanuel, because I thought he'd be interested. It was "Memories of Paul Klee", by Jankel Adler. And I think, I'm pretty certain that W.S. Graham told me that he helped Jankel with the English, to get it together. And it's a most marvellous thing, I think, you know. I found it right at the bottom of the pile, so it must have been quite early on, it must have been about 1942, or something like that. Well, I had them regularly for, I don't know how many years I did, three or four years, I think.

And were there short stories and things in there?

Yes, articles and short stories. You know them, don't you? You know the magazine?

Well, I know it, but to tell you the truth, I've hardly looked through them.

Yes, there are articles and ... always something on art, something on music, and perhaps an original story or something in them as well, and criticisms of this, that and the other. Some of it's above me altogether, but never mind! Yes. Ben wrote in it. And ... I don't know. I never look at them now, except to find that thing. And there was a marvellous ... yes, an early poem of Dylan Thomas's, which I liked very much, I

Which one was that?

"The Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait, which I've never seen since, anywhere. Do you know that?

No, I don't. I like Dylan Thomas.

And a lovely poem, which I was absolutely thrilled with, by somebody called R.S. Thomas, who was a writer/poet, clergyman I think, and it was on flying, because I think he was a flying instructor. I may have got it all mixed up, but I got the idea, somebody told me he was a flying instructor, or a pilot during the War. And he wrote this one, which starts off... "Murmurations of engines in the cold caves of air ... and there in the starlight above a stiff sea of cloud ..." But it's, I think, wonderful, actually, mmm. R.S. Thomas. I got a book of his out of the library the other day, or tried to, and couldn't find this in it at all. He probably rejected it. Strange, memories, aren't they. They were talking about Mondrian last night, on the radio, Radio 4 Kaleidoscope programme. Did you hear that?

I didn't.

All about Mondrian. And very very interesting. How he's been taken up again, and everybody's very interested in his work again. Because he, for a short time, he had this studio next door to Ben and, Ben and Barbara it would be then, didn't he. But he wouldn't come down to Cornwall, apparently.

Yes, that's right. They tried to persuade him, didn't they, to come down, I think.

Yes. He went off to America instead and did boogie woogie things, which I don't like so much as his very plain ones, actually, personally. But there we are. But he was a marvellously fanatical sort of person I think. A bit strange. He had sort of mystical ideas and things, didn't he, theosophy or something. But... yes, I know, I know somebody who ... the architect friend of Ben's, who did The Circle.

Martin?

Yes, yes. Because I went out there once. Ben arranged for me to go out there, with...

To go out where?

To his house outside London. It was a farmhouse out in the country, and I was going to meet another painter on the station, and go out there with him, which I did, and ... oh, he was a friend of... Lucian Freud's.

Craxton?

Yes, Johnny Craxton. And we recognised each other on the station and we went out there.

Because you'd met, hadn't you. Craxton and Freud had come to Scilly.

Yes. Yes. Strange. Yes. So that was interesting. So I went out there, and he had a ... he had a Mondrian, and I think it was one that was damaged a bit, and Ben was supposed to be the only person who could possibly be allowed to touch it, you know, because he had a sensitive attitude to the paint and everything. They were talking about the paint. Apparently the white's come up in relief, above the dark lines. The whites were put on so thickly that the black lines were indented, as it were, with a number of... you know, many coats of paint, I suppose. It was a very interesting talk last night, because a lot of those things, they annoy me rather, but this was very good.

End of Part 9

Part 10 [Tape 6 Side A]

We're nearly at an end now, but when you were on Scilly, did you ever get lonely, or were you too busy?

No, I didn't get lonely, I don't think, no. No.

You had visitors and things?

Of course. Yes. What, people coming to visit me?

Mmm.

Only if they happened to be over there, and they'd ... not really, no. Well, once or twice I had friends stayed with me over there. Bouverie Hoyton stayed with me over there, Bouverie and Alice Hoyton stayed with me over there.

The painter?

No. Yes, the Head of the Art School in Penzance. And that's about all I can remember.

And you said Freud and Craxton came.

They were on holiday, yes. Yes.

And you came back over here.

Julian Trevelyan came. Julian came over, yes. And, oh, I don't know who else. Oh, I know who, yes. Toni del Renzio. He was, who was the painter who died, you know, a few years ago, who lived up near Paul, near Paul Church, Ithell Colquhoun, her husband or her boyfriend, or whatever he was, a surrealist he was, and he had this magazine called ... oh, I don't know, some funny magazine. He's written on it, "To

John Wells, who was a true surrealist", or something. He's still alive, I believe, Toni Del Renzio.

Yes, I know the name.

Yes, incredible! Incredible!

Did he teach at the Royal College, or something?

No, I don't know. He's ... I don't know. He was a writer, anyway.

And so you had your music there. I mean, you were obviously painting, weren't you, as well as being a doctor.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Reading.

I had my old gramophone, which you had to wind up, of course. Reading, yes.

And were you in touch with Ben and Barbara? You were, weren't you?

Yes, yes. On and off, yes. And very occasionally, I managed to get away for a couple of nights or something, to go and see them and Gabo. See Gabo, and Ben and Barbara, yes.

And you talked about Gabo in the main tapes.

Mmm.

And Barbara, slightly.

Yes.

And you ... but she had been exchanged, I mean, she was now ... Winifred you really hardly knew. You hardly saw her, did you.

Well, not down at Feock, no. Of course, I had the show with her in London, and I only just saw her to talk to her a bit, and she was very quiet, and a very nice lady, really.

Did you keep in touch with her at all?

Not really, no. Not like that, I don't think. No. No, I didn't. I was trying to think of anybody else who used to come over there. I believe Tom Early came over there once and called on me. He's going to have a show at the ... Do you know him?

No, I don't.

Well, he was ... actually a qualified doctor, and he was a great friend of Denis's, actually. He also had epilepsy, and it really, you know ... he died, oh, quite a few years ago now. But he was a great friend of Denis's, and he did some very strange paintings, wonderful. And they're going to have a show of his. They're going to do his book, that's right.

Who are?

His widow has produced a book on him, and that's going to be done in the Tate. Yes. Yes. Tom Early. He's the one about whom Sven said, "To whom the doors of the unconscious are always open". A marvellous expression. [Laughs]

Have you read the Sven Berlin book?

Not yet, no. What, "The Coat of Many Colours"?

Yes.

No, not yet. Have you?

I've dipped into it. My mother gave it to me, actually, and I've dipped into it, but I haven't read it properly.

Yes. She's interested in painting, is she?

Well, she knows that I am, I think.

Oh, she knows that you are, yes. Yes.

But did you get used to looking after yourself, then? Did you ever think of marrying at all? Did you wish you had someone to be your housekeeper?

No. I got engaged once, yes.

Did you?

Yes. Yes.

When was that?

Oh, about half way during the War, I suppose.

So, on the Scillies?

Somebody there, yes. Yes. She had to go off to the Forces, of course, and of course, that flaked out and ... yes.

What, she was called up, sort of thing?

Yes. Oh yes, mmm. Well, actually, I met her at Renie's 90th birthday, a couple of years ago, because she lives at Feock. After 40 years!

And did she marry someone else, then?

Oh yes, she married, mmm. Married a pilot, yes. And very happy, I think. Got grandchildren I think, something like that. Well, I recognise them all, anyway.

What, and did you ... did she sort of... did you correspond or anything, after?

Oh Lord, yes, for a time, yes. Yes. Yes.

What, and did you think you would get married in the end, or did it sort of... when she went away did you think, "Oh well... after the War"?

I suppose I did for a time, but it didn't work out that way, that's all. Yes.

So she was the main one?

I suppose so. But there were lots of other ones, perhaps. Nobody else I got engaged to, actually. Yes.

And so then, after the War, you came back here and ...

Yes. I came over ... my mother got me this little studio in the garden here, first of all. I rented from Stanhope, and then when Stanhope died, I got in touch with Mrs. Forbes, and talked about the bigger studio, and, you know, whether it was possible to buy it. And so we came to an agreement about that, and I bought it.

And that's Stanhope Forbes who had taught you in 1928?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And then, of course, this ... I heard this was going to be closed down, and it was really another of Stanhope Forbes' studios to start with. It wasn't one bit of it...

What, before it was the school?

Yes. Oh yes. Yes. Yes.

And so where did he do his teaching, then?

Where?

Yes. At the other one?

At the other place, my other place, yes. But I think he had this for a workplace, I think, to start with. That's my room. And you can see where they're joined on, these two rooms and the wash-house were added on to it in 1900 or something like that, mmm. But my neighbour, a couple of days ago, knocked on my door and said, "We've got a great big book on ... English painting, and there's a painting by Stanhope Forbes of your studio". So I went up, this is her son-in-law, when he had this enormous book he'd brought down from Scotland, and there's a wonderful painting of the front of my studio over there, as it was, more or less, when I took it over in 19 ... whatever it was. But this was in 1903, looking very much like when I first went there, you know. And previous to that, the top part was a glass, glass, glass house, you know, this 'plein air' painting thing, you know. And I've got a photograph of the slate roof being put on in 1900, Mafeking Day. You see, very interesting. And I remember there was, you know what old glass house ... glazing bars are like, don't you? They're quite different from ... I

Yes.

... you know, well there were several of these glazing bars used in the roof, when they put the slate roof on, and they're still there now. It's very very fascinating. And this is a marvellous painting. I've never seen it before. It's in a private collection. And I'm going to try and get it from the library, and then get a photograph of it, because it's so interesting.

Yes, that is interesting.

Yes, taken from sort of half way along the lane, or in the garden just above, with a lot

I wonder where the picture is?

I don't know, it's a private collection, and there we are.

You know that Newlyn Exhibition that was ... that Caroline Fox and Frances Greenacre, I wonder whether it was in there?

I don't think it is in there, I would have known of that, yes. No. No. It's wonderful really. Wonderful. [in aud] ... private little workroom, you know. He had this photograph of my father on the wall. And he found out what was wrong with my father, you see, nobody knew what was wrong with him. And that's why they sent him down to Ditchling, to try and recover, and he decided it was this glanders bug, you know. You know what glanders is, it's a horse disease. And, but it does, you know, it is picked up occasionally by human beings, and he got a ... the sort of thing that penicillin would cure in two or three days now. But then, of course, it was hopeless. So that was that.

End of Part 10 [End of interview]